Chocolate is made from cocoa beans but not always. Some chocolates have other ingredients in them and very little or no cacao beans. Some chocolates are just made from cocoa powder, sugar, and milk or oil.
Let's read more about the cocoa bean, cocoa butter, cocoa solids, and chocolate.
Cocoa Pod
The cocoa pod is a fruit that comes from the cacao tree. The pods are shaped like a bell with a spiky top. Each pod has 50 to 150 cocoa beans in it. The Cacao pods grow directly from the trunk of the cacao tree on short stalks that emerge from axils between the leaves.
Cocoa Beans
Cocoa pods are harvested by hand and put in bags while still on the tree, then they go through a process called fermentation. Fermentation involves piling the beans in heaps for 7 to 20 days according to weather conditions, then placing them in well-ventilated rooms for 8 to 10 days.
After the fermentation process, workers collect ripe pods by hand or with machetes, open them up and remove the seeds inside which are called cocoa beans.
The cocoa beans are now ready to be removed from their pods and dried out. The beans are then cleaned, graded into different sizes, and packed for shipping.
The fermentation of the beans ensures the flavor and taste of the chocolate. Similarly, beans around the world have unique flavors and tastes.
Processing of the Cocoa
Cacao beans need to go through a process before they become chocolate. First, the cacao bean has to ferment for five days. Then it goes through another process called drying with hot air. After that, the cocoa beans have to roast in an oven without being burned.
Once roasted, the beans are break open and get winnowed away from their shells and husks. There's an aliquot taken from this part for grading according to size, shape, color, density, moisture content, and other factors. An aliquot is a term used when part of something is saved or set aside for later use because it's good.
Cocoa Butter
Cocoa butter is the fat that's inside chocolate and it is important to have in chocolate because it keeps it from melting quickly, which makes it last longer. And cocoa butter can be pressed out of the chopped up cocoa bean pieces to make chocolate.
Some people even use cocoa butter for moisturizing their skin to keep it soft and protect themselves from the sun's harmful rays.
The good thing about cocoa butter is it has no smell or taste so flavors can be added in.
In order to have a lot of cocoa butter in chocolate, there has to be a lot of cocoa contained inside it. The more cocoa inside one bar or piece, the better its quality.
Cocoa Solids
Cocoa solids are another thing that's important in chocolate. Cocoa solids help keep the cocoa butter inside the chocolate from melting quickly. This helps it last longer. So if all you had was cacao it would melt really fast because it has no fats inside it to protect it.
Cocoa solids are the part of chocolate that isn't cocoa butter. The main thing in them is cacao or cocoa powder.
There is nothing wrong with using cocoa solids but many large manufacturers use more cocoa solids than cocoa mass to make it cheap, which affects the taste and quality of the chocolates.
Chocolate would work well if you used more cocoa mass than cocoa solids because then at least there would be more taste and quality in the chocolate itself.
Most of the bean to bar chocolate manufacturers will not use cocoa solid and use only cacao butter and cocoa bean to make the real chocolate. For instance in BeeTee’s Melt Chocolate, there are no cocoa solids at all in any of the chocolates.
Cocoa liquor
Cocoa liquor is the term used for a solid chocolate mass. The cocoa liquor has to go through a process called conching where it's blended and the cocoa butter and the cocoa solids are beaten into every single part of the bar to make everything evenly smooth.
After the conching process is done, the liquors are cooled down and made into blocks or molds for packaging and shipping around the world.
The highest percentage of chocolate liquor in a bar will determine how strong it is because if there isn't enough liquor in it, then it won't be able to solidify well enough because there's only too
Sugar
Sugar is another ingredient that goes into chocolate. Sugar helps make it sweeter and gives it a nice taste. Without sugar, chocolate wouldn't be as good as it is now without some sweetness to the taste.
Since many large manufacturers use fewer cocoa beans and more cocoa solids than cocoa butter to make it cheaper, they may also use too much sugar so they can get by with less expensive ingredients for making the chocolate which isn't always known by customers or even thought about unless they read all of this information here.
Now people are looking for alternatives to common sugar, which led to a series of chocolates without common sugar and uses muscovado sugar, palm sugar, and sugar-free supplements.
BeeTee’s Melt Chocolate does not use any refined sugar in the manufacturing proposes thus making it a favored choice for health-conscious people.
The above mentioned are the active ingredients of the chocolate and now let's get into the process of the production of chocolate and how is chocolate manufactured.
How chocolate is made (step by step)
The first step in making chocolate is to dry and roast the cocoa beans. The process depends on the climate conditions and the time of year when they are picked and how long they spend in transit to get to processing plants from farms.
After roasting, which takes about an hour, the roasted cocoa beans are cracked open a bit by the heat. Next, machines called winnowers to remove most of their husks or shells so that only 10% remains.
This gives us cocoa nibs with a dark brown color. Nibs contain proanthocyanidins, which can prevent cholesterol buildup in arteries and have anti-inflammation properties... not bad for a little food product!
Next comes grinding in which the cocoa nibs are crushed into smaller pieces. The grinding pulverizes the molecules in it so they can be more easily mixed together with other ingredients for making chocolate.
Next comes adding sugar, flavorings, colorings (if desired), and other ingredients.
Finally, it goes through tempering where it has to be heated up to a certain point in order for it to set properly after it gets cooled down... otherwise you will have a bunch of liquid chocolate!
Now the fun part... packaging the final product so it can be sent off, where consumers buy it and consume it. And now you know how your favorite Bean to Bar chocolate is made!!!
Manufacturing Chocolate from Cocoa Solids
Most of the large industrial brands will make chocolate from cocoa solids instead of cocoa beans. And they make chocolate by separating the cocoa butter from the cocoa bean.
The cocoa butter is then added back to the cacao solids and other ingredients like sugar, milk powder, emulsifiers, and flavors are mixed together.
This method of manufacturing chocolate from cocoa solids uses significant amounts of chemicals such as emulsifiers and preservatives which make it cheap but not healthy.
So if you want to eat something that is good for your health then try our product which contains only 3 main ingredients: Cocoa bean, Cocoa Butter and sugar.
Types of Chocolate
The different types of Chocolate are - Milk Chocolate, Dark chocolate, and White Chocolate.
Milk chocolate
Chocolate is made from a combination of cocoa solids, cocoa butter, and milk powder. It is normally sweet, with a low content of cocoa (seldom higher than 50%), and has a mild chocolate flavor.
Dark Chocolate
Dark chocolate has a cocoa content between 50 and 70 percent and provides a distinct flavor. Dark or semi-sweet chocolates contain little or no milk solids and are higher in chocolate liquor, cocoa butter, with added sugar.
White Chocolate
White Chocolate contains cocoa butter, milk solids, and sugar - no chocolate liquor. It does not contain dark cocoa powder or any of the other types of chocolate.
Chocolate is made from
Chocolate is consumed all around the world and the main raw material for the chocolate is cocoa beans.
In summary, there are two main types of ingredients to chocolate, one which uses cacao beans and cocoa butter alone and the other which uses cocoa solid and chemical additives to make it cheaper.
After all, once you realize what goes into making chocolates and how much common sugar there is in them (and products related to those chocolates), you'll realize why so many people are turning to alternatives like ours.
So the next time you buy chocolates for your friends and family, do take a moment to think about what they really contain and how it is made!
BeeTee’s Melt Chocolate does not use any emulsifiers or preservatives in its manufacturing process and uses only natural ingredients. And the chocolates are gluten-free and soy-free and it is made without any allergens.
