Nib to Bar Milk Chocolate

[Kerry Beal]

When I was down at the PMCA this year Andel and Balu from Innoconcepts lent me one of their Cocoa Town Deluxe Melangers to bring home to play with. This was the same unit that Balu brought to the 2010 eGullet Chocolate and Confectionery conference that Leibovitz hosted in Maryland in April.

The discussion about the UltraPride that Chris Amirault purchased here prompted me to pull this out and start playing with it.

I had been thinking that the next batch of chocolate that I made should be milk - my first milk batch was disappointing - and I knew I could improve on that. I had sourced some full cream milk powder that I knew would taste better than the stuff from the bulk food store I'd used before. My first batch used some El Rey nibs that I had - they were not pleasant. This batch I used the Cacao Barry nibs - much soother, less acidic than the El Rey.

Here is the melanger ready to go.

Here is the cooling fan that this unit has built in which helps allow it to run continually for as many hours as are required to conch the chocolate.

Used the Thermomix to make chocolate liquor from the nibs. Forgot to take a picture before unloading!

Cocoa butter all melted and ready to go.

Sugar ground to a powder in the Thermomix.

Tasty full cream milk powder from Poland.

The melanger with the melted cocoa butter and nibs.

After the addition of the milk powder and sugar. Note how grainy the mixture appears.

After about 16 hours of conching. Note how smooth the mixture appears.

Tempering the new chocolate.

Molding up some bars.

Apparently I didn't polish the 500 gram bar molds.

I had a bit left over from the large bars to make some smaller bars to take to work for sampling purposes.

Conclusion - wonderfully smooth milk chocolate - recipe needs a bit of work however. I think the next time I'll grind the vanilla bean with the sugar, I'll cut back on the sugar (the bar was pretty sweet), add a bit more milk powder and I might consider using deodorized cocoa butter so there is no flavour contribution from that component.

[Darienne]

Hooray for the Chocolate Doctor!!!! Nothing stops this woman!!!

Do you get the keep the new toy???

[Kerry Beal]

It's a loaner.

[E.T.]

It looks delicious! What was the sugar / cocoa mass / milk solids ratio in the finished bars?

[Kerry Beal]

It looks delicious! What was the sugar / cocoa mass / milk solids ratio in the finished bars?

The recipe was

300 grams cocoa nibs

550 grams cocoa butter

1 tsp lecithin

230 grams full fat milk powder

950 grams sugar

1 split vanilla bean

40 grams clarified butter

So about 40% chocolate.

[Chocolot]

Kerry--you are amazing!

[Kerry Beal]

Kerry--you are amazing!

Ah, shucks!

Anyway - it sure isn't hard to do. I'm surprised more people aren't giving it a try.

[justDeb]

Kerry,

In addition to decreasing the sugar and increasing the milk powder, you might want to increase the nibs and decrease the cocoa butter a little. I use the following formulation with my Costa Rican beans which gets rave reviews (a lot depends, of course, on the beans/nibs being used):

nibs/liquor: 20%

cocoa butter: 23%

sugar: 35%

whole milk powder: 22%

(I also use a teeny amount of lecithin and I don't use deodorized cocoa butter)

You'll find you get a much more full bodied chocolate if more of your total cocoa content is liquor.

[Chris Hennes]

Kerry, what do you see as the advantage of going "bean to bar"? There are an awful lot of really good chocolates out there, it's hard to see making the investment in one of these gizmos just to wind up with the same thing you could just buy off the shelf.

[justDeb]

Kerry, what do you see as the advantage of going "bean to bar"? There are an awful lot of really good chocolates out there, it's hard to see making the investment in one of these gizmos just to wind up with the same thing you could just buy off the shelf.

I'm new here (posting at least; I've been reading for a LONG time) and I hope I don't sound like I'm picking a fight, but I disagree with you Chris that you could buy off the shelf what you could make. Unless you're big enough to dictate your recipe, you are buying what the manufacturer chooses to make. That end product is very dependent upon the origin of the beans, the blend of the beans if not single origin, the roasting process, the ratios of liquor, sugar, cocoa butter and potential other ingredients, etc. Besides all those things over which you can maintain control, there is a lot of personal satisfaction from making your own product. To be honest, if given the same recipe, I could make at home what a lot of professionals make a living creating; but they go on creating it because it's a work of love for them to do so. Same thing for bean to bar artisans. Those of us who dabble in bean to bonbon just have two processes we enjoy equally.

[Chris Hennes]

I can't argue the enjoyment factor, of course! If you like doing it, by all means, continue. But Kerry asked above why more people don't do it, and I for one don't do it because I don't see the advantage. Of course I have no control over what any one manufacturer chooses to make: but there are hundreds, probably even thousands, of different chocolates for the artisan confectioner to choose from. Much as I don't mill my own flour, or make my own butter, I don't make my own chocolate because I don't see what you gain by doing so, considering the additional equipment you have to own and maintain.

[Kerry Beal]

Chris - I didn't really express myself well. I wasn't really meaning the home confectioner as much as the small artisan confectioner - I think it adds a product to their shelves that will impress customers to no end. People are always asking me if I make my own chocolate - for an artisan confectioner to say 'yes'...

Fot the home folks - yup - just for those who like to play with things - like me!!!!

[Kerry Beal]

Kerry,

In addition to decreasing the sugar and increasing the milk powder, you might want to increase the nibs and decrease the cocoa butter a little. I use the following formulation with my Costa Rican beans which gets rave reviews (a lot depends, of course, on the beans/nibs being used):

nibs/liquor: 20%

cocoa butter: 23%

sugar: 35%

whole milk powder: 22%

(I also use a teeny amount of lecithin and I don't use deodorized cocoa butter)

You'll find you get a much more full bodied chocolate if more of your total cocoa content is liquor.

Thanks for the suggestions. What sort of cocoa butter are you using?

Tell us more about your chocolate making?

[justDeb]

Thanks for the suggestions. What sort of cocoa butter are you using?

I buy organic, prime pressed cocoa butter in 10 pound bunches from a seller on eBay. The price is right and I can't taste any difference from the much more expensive CB from Callebaut, etc.

Tell us more about your chocolate making?

I'm just a hobbyist with a day job that has no relation to food. I started making chocolate a little over a year ago after becoming intrigued by the Chocolate Alchemy site. Once I got my formulations to where I was happy with them, I started branching out by learning and practicing making confections with my couverture, much to the pleasure of all of my co-workers/tasters.

I make the chocolate pretty much the same way as you did above with a Santha rather than an Ultra. Adding the Thermomix several months ago made the process much easier and quicker than the Chocolate Alchemy way, but of course that addition came at great expense. I'm just having the time of my life reading, learning and making chocolate and chocolates; makes the day job much more tolerable.

[Chris Amirault]

Kerry, did you run the UP 16 hours straight? Does that unit have a fan to cool the motor?

[RobertM]

This is exactly the type of thing I want to do when I retire (heavy sigh) - and reading about these adventures of yours really fans the fires.

Where did you find a source for the beans?

[justDeb]

Robert,

A very convenient and reasonably priced source for small to large quantities of beans (1 pound to a 70kg bag) is John Nanci at ChocolateAlchemy.com. He carries 7-8 varieties at a time and also sells them in the form of nibs, so that you don't have to worry about cracking the beans and separating the nib from the husk. I also buy beans from another bean to bar chocolatier in North Carolina who uses the same origin as I prefer to use. They're not in the business of selling beans, but I asked if they wouldn't mind sharing since they import large quantities anyhow and they agreed.

[Kerry Beal]

Kerry, did you run the UP 16 hours straight? Does that unit have a fan to cool the motor?

I did indeed - if you look at one of the pictures I posted it shows the fan underneath the motor unit.

[Kerry Beal]

This is exactly the type of thing I want to do when I retire (heavy sigh) - and reading about these adventures of yours really fans the fires.

Where did you find a source for the beans?

John Nanci for sure at chocolate alchemy - he's wonderful!

This batch however used some Cacao Barry nibs that I have quite a little stash of.

[Sebastian]

Should you try milk chocolate again, i suggest scrapping the whole milk powder, and using skim (or NFDM) + anhydrous milk fat (AMF - you can buy it from land o lakes) instead.

WMP, being 26-28.5% milk fat that is spread out all over the very large surface area of the milk solids particle - will be much, much more susceptible to oxidation (read - rancidity). Combine that with the fact that many packaged WMP bags are not nitrogen flushed (ie, exposed to oxygen), and are likely quite old by the time you buy them - that's not the best combination.

NFDM (or skim, depending on where you live) - since it has no fat in it (well, about 0.7%, mas o menos...), is not susceptible to oxaditive rancidity. Because your milk fat will be stored (and added) separately, you have much better control over the storage conditions of the milk fat. Additionally, because you're adding the milk fat separately, it will actually reduce the viscosity more (even though there's the same over all quantity of fat present), because it's not 'bound' to the surfaces of the milk powder, like much of it is with WMP.

Net/Net - better flavor, longer shelf life, lower viscosity.

Interestingly, you'll also find that the flavor of your milk will change depending on which country you get it from (much like cocoa..). Your Polish milk will taste different than the milk that comes, from say, Parmalot in Canada.

[Kerry Beal]

Sebastion - thanks for the suggestions. I can't purchase the Parmalat milk (they want you to buy in huge quantities, not sure if I can get the Land of Lakes AMF either - given that I'm in Canada. Do you know if they sell smaller quantities?

[justDeb]

Sebastian,

Is ghee an acceptable AMF? If so, I'd like to give your suggestion a whirl myself, but I'm curious what the equivalence would be. For instance, in place of say, 500 grams of whole milk powder (which is rather easy to acquire in Los Angeles given the large hispanic community), how much NFMP and how much AMF would you use?

Thanks,

Deborah

[Sebastian]

Kerry - i've not looked in the Canadian grocery stores for many years, but you used to be able to buy boxed NFDM (in the same aisle as condensed milk). I'd start there..I've got a link to the LoL milk fat somewhere at home - i'm currently travelling so you'll have to wait until i get home to dig it out. If my memory fails, don't hesitate to remind me 8-)

Deb - Ghee will work just fine. In fact, i prefer the flavor. Regarding how much to use, that's a little bit up to personal preference. I think and work in formulation %'s. I'd recommend starting with a formulation that has about 4% milk fat, and adjust from there. If you'd like, you can calculate how much milk fat would be required to be paired with NFDM to achieve what's essentially a reconstituted WMP, by targeting a 'milk blend' fat of 26-28%. But that just sounds like more work to me 8-)

Last year i worked on a project to teach my daughter how to make chocolate, including building a small scale factory - which she then sold the chocolate to benefit the homeless. She raised thousands and thousands of dollars - so it was very effective, and she learned alot. We focused on dark chocolate. If we do it again, I'm going to help her build a crumb oven and teach her how to make crumb based milk chocolate. Some of the basics that I'd teach her are the same as those above 8-)

[mrose]

Kerry

Do you have a good source of full fat milk powder The only place I found it costs about $7 a pound.

Mark

[Kerry Beal]

Kerry

Do you have a good source of full fat milk powder The only place I found it costs about $7 a pound.

Mark

The full fat milk powder that I bought was in a european market - don't recall how much I paid but I'm pretty sure it was less than $7 a lb