CHOCOLATE: From Cocoa Pods To Chocolate Bar Chocolate ranks as the favorite flavor of most people - adults as well as children. And yet, few of us know how this popular treat is made. Chocolate making is an art as well as science. Read on and find out how this unique blend is achieved.
Born in the Jungle
Chocolates are made from cacao
beans which grow inside pods on trees called Cacao tress. Cacao
frees are found in tropical jungles in Brazil, Indonesia, Ivory
Coast and Ghana. Each pod contains about 20 - 40 cocoa beans.
After the beans are removed from the pods, they are fermented in
large heaps or piles. The fermentation process takes about a week
to complete. After fermentation, the beans are dried. During this
time, the shells harden, the beans darken, and the rich cocoa flavor
develops. After drying, the beans are ready for transport to the
chocolate factory.
At the chocolate factory, these beans are cleaned and stored. They
are then roasted in large, revolving roasters at very high temperatures.
A special hulling machine then takes the dry, roasted cacao beans
and separates the shell from the bean - called the "nib."
This part of the bean is actually used to make chocolate.
The nibs now are ready for milling. Milling is a grinding process
which turns the nibs into a liquid called chocolate liquor/ cocoa
mass - a smooth, dark stream of pure chocolate flavor without any
alcohol content. Sometimes instead of using Cocoa liquor/ cocoa
mass directly, cocoa powder and cocoa butter are separated from
it. Now the cocoa liquor is ready for the rest of the ingredients.
Mixing it Up
The main ingredients in chocolate
are the cocoa powder, cocoa butter, sugar and milk. The whole milk-sugar
mixture is slowly dried until it turns into a thick material.
At the heart of the chocolate factory goes the central blending
operation where the cocoa powder is combined with the milk and sugar.
This new mixture is dried into a coarse, brown powder called chocolate
crumb.
Crumbing the Chocolate Liquor
The raw mixture of milk, liquor,
sugar, and cocoa butter is churned until it becomes a coarse, brown
powder called "crumb."
Perfecting the Product
The chocolate crumb powder is used
to make milk chocolate. The crumb travels through special steel
rollers which grind and refine the mixture, making it smoother.
The crumb becomes a thick liquid called chocolate paste. The paste
is poured into huge metallic vats called conches. Once inside the
conch, large granite rollers smooth out the gritty particles from
the crumb. Now the chocolate paste has the smooth and creamy familiar
look of milk chocolate and it's ready to be made into our favorite
Mitchell's products. The paste is tempered, or cooled in a controlled
manner to the right texture and consistency. Other ingredients like
Hazelnuts/Almonds can be mixed into the paste during refining to
boost up natural taste & flavour.
Tempering the Chocolate
The refined chocolate is warmed &
cooled in a controlled condition before coating or filling in the
moulds in a process called "tempering." This gives chocolate
its glossy sheen, and ensures that it will melt properly.
Chocolate
Bars
Most chocolate bars are made by pouring the warm liquid chocolate
paste into moulds. The filled moulds then take a bumpy, vibrating
ride to remove air bubbles and allow the chocolate to settle evenly.
Finally, they wind their way through a long cooling tunnel where
the liquid chocolate is gently chilled into a solid shiny chocolate
bar.
One important point to remember is that chocolate needs to be stored
at appropriate temperatures otherwise its fat content will separate
resulting in the appearance of yellowish fat spots on the chocolate
surface. This problem is called a fat-bloom.
The chocolate bars are now ready for wrapping…... fresh, delicious
Mitchell's chocolate! A sophisticated distribution system makes sure
that our chocolate arrives at retail outlets across the country.
Thanks for visiting our chocolate factory!
