A visit to Callebaut's factory

[NickLam]

Not really edible floors and displays all over the place. No chocolate river or abnoxious kids.

Of their 30 odd factories around the world, this one in Singapore is the smallest and the only one in Asia that manufactures finished chocolate for the Barry Callebaut label. So, included in this range are Sicao and others. The Callebaut we all know is made in Belgium, not in Asia.

On entering the factory, we saw a large tank of cocoa mass with a conveyer belt leading to these machines called a 5 wheel refiner. There are like 8 of them in a line.

Imagine a tall machine, with 5 large and long solid metal pipes. These pipes are precision engineered to have small gaps from 70 to 20 microns. The cocoa mass gets crushed and mashed through progressively smaller gapped pipes to reach 20 microns.

The refined mass than travels via conveyer to large conchs (Or churning machines) where up to 600kgs are conched at the same time for 8 hours. We saw choc conches with choc in them for only 1 hour, and it looked like paste. But the manager assured us that the cocoa fat breaks down and becomes very liquid at the end of 8 hours.

This liqiuid is then piped to another set of tanks, where additional cocoa butter and other flavourings are added to be mixed in for 1 hour. This mixture is subsequently pumped to huge holding tanks that hold up to 50 tonnes of chocolate each. We counted 23 tanks, not inclusive of the smaller 20 tonne ones.

This chocolat goes thru pipes via gravity to the 1st floor, where the molding and packaging take place. On one side, they have the callet or droplet machine. The chocolate travels to a big machine with a large rectangular dispenser with many small dispensing pipes. The conveyer belt is probably made of silicone and every squirt of chocolate dispenses probably 200 callets.

These then go thru a cooling tunnel and are collected at the end in a funnel, much similar to the ones croupiers use at the roulette table to funnel your chips.

On the other side, they mould their 6kg blocks. Polycarbonate molds travel on a travelator and a pipe dispenses the exact amount of chocolate. It is just sheer beauty to watch the chocolate flow into the mold, go to a vibration section, thru a freezer that takes 1 hr to totally set the chocolate and into a packaging machine.

Oompahloompahs just stack the finished products at the end, wrap it and forklift it away.

They also told us that what we hear about 72 hour conching is nonsense. Pretty bold remarks. He said there are 3 kinds of conches. 1st type is theirs, which is industrial.

The 2nd type is called a McIntyre (Not sure of the spelling). Its basically a big cement mixer like thing with rotating stainless steel blades that slap against the side of the mixer. The heat generated and slapping motion breaks down the chocolate in 72 hours to give you 20 microns. However, he said lab tests have shown incredulously high amounts of stainless steel and metal particles in them. I'm thinking........some degenerative brain disorders might be linked to aluminum, etc..etc...

The 3rd type of conch is one that heats it up and churns it. Unlike Callebaut, who refine their chocolate to 20 microns before conching, some small manufacturers simply churn it and obtain a reasonable mouthfeel because the cocoa crystals, which are originally crystal like, gradually get rounded.

Hopefully, anyone who has ever wondered how they make chocolate get a clearer picture of what goes on. I was intrigued all the way, learning so much and feel really priveledged to have visited a real chocolate factory.

[tan319]

Thanks for posting a very interesting thread here.

Does anyone know what type of conching a Cluizel or Valrhona do?

Curious...

[Sebastian]

Actually, your guide wasn't quite accurate. There are still places that do traditional extended conching, and there are more types of conches available than he's indicating. The Macyntire type conches are not all bad, but there are less expensive Chinese Macyntire type pieces of equipment that do result in more metal (their liquor ball mills likely produce much higher metal lvls. Or their winnowing machines if the beans are not properly cleaned prior to entering the equipment). As with all equipment, a good Macyntire and regular maintainence, you'll be alright.

[NickLam]

Actually, your guide wasn't quite accurate.  There are still places that do traditional extended conching, and there are more types of conches available than he's indicating.  The Macyntire type conches are not all bad, but there are less expensive Chinese Macyntire type pieces of equipment that do result in more metal (their liquor ball mills likely produce much higher metal lvls.  Or their winnowing machines if the beans are not properly cleaned prior to entering the equipment).  As with all equipment, a good Macyntire and regular maintainence, you'll be alright.

←

Hi Sebastian, thanks for pointing out the inaccuracies in that report.

Everything I typed was shown to us by the product development manager, who's a chocolatier, amongst other things, from Belgium.

Could you please elaborate more on the Macyntire type machines? We are looking at buying from a small artisanal producer who makes amazing chocolate, but with a Macyntire one and were worried bout the metal content.

And also, what other type of conches are available in the market?

Cheers!

[Sebastian]

Macyntires are grinder/conches. The concept is you throw all your materials into it (coarse sugar, milk, liquor, etc) turn it on, and come back in 20 hours to have a chocolate that's ground to the appropriate fineness and conched. In my opinion, it's not the best conching system out there, but it does work very well from a grinding/emulsification standpoint. It's not to say you won't get some conching out of it (conching is done for many, many reasons, not just flavor development), because you will. This equipment needs to be maintained as does any equipment, the most critical things to keep on top of are approprate gap between the mixing paddles and the vessel wall, keeping an appropriate coating on the vessel internal wall, and maintaining appropriate condition of the mixing paddles. If you're concerned about metals content, there's a few things you can do. Ask your supplier about his qualiity control systems and HACCP procedures. Ask if there are any internal specifications on metals content, and how that's monitored. Obtain a few samples from them as well as from his competitors, and have them sent for metals analysis (I prefer ICP, many places use AA which is ok too). Ask about their screens and magnets, and ask if you can see documentation regarding their quality check, action levels, and disposition procedures. If they're a small producer (bean to chocolate), you might want to spend some time going over their entire quality system, from salmonella and micro to comprehensive HACCP and their critical control points. I'm more than happy to go over the results with you if you have any questions on what you're seeing from them. Oh, and I'd want to know if it's indeed a Macintyre (Macintyre's a brand name - not all flying disks are frisbees, although everyone calls them that. it's the same with grinder/conches) - everything else being the same, I'd be more inclined to have a better 'gut' feel about a true Macintyre vs a knockoff.

As to other types, since he didn't elaborate on what they were using, i'll very likely hit on what he's using - there's frisse's, thouets, continous systems, melangeurs, and a few others.

[NickLam]

Wow, thanks for the great information and things to look out for. I'd definitely bring these up next time with the supplier when we feel we wanna go with him. Their chocolate is just amazing, with mouthfeel I'd dare compare to Valrhona and the taste is magnificent. Tried one of their special blends which he swears do not contain nuts. However, the beautiful flavour of hazelnuts and almonds peeked behind a very long, intense finish. If anyone is interested, they are Kennedy and Wilson in Yarra Valley.

I saw their Macintyre, it was a reallly really noisy thing that looked like a cement mixer. I think by end 2006, their 500kg one will be installed.

Thanks again for the info Sebastian.