Making Chocolate

  Ever wonder how chocolate is made? The short story is that these are made from bitter cacao beans and then molded into chocolate bars. If you were a chocolate company like Hershey�s, you would need a lot of them and to give you an idea how it is made, here is a guide in the production process.

The first thing that needs to be done is to harvest the cacao beans. Large companies buy these from farmers or buy the farm and harvest these themselves. They then put these in an oven at a temperature between 120 to 163 degrees Celsius that is about 250 to 325 degrees Fahrenheit for 5 to 35 minutes.

Naturally, you will gradually lower the temperature and stop roasting them when the beans start to crack.

There are two reasons why cacao beans stay in an oven at varying times.

First is to prevent them from burning. Naturally, you will gradually lower the temperature and stop roasting them when the beans start to crack. Naturally, you will gradually lower the temperature and stop roasting them when the beans start to crack.

Second, the cooking time of cacao beans varies depending on the type of bean that is being used.

Since companies produce chocolates in vast quantities, the cacao beans are stored in drums and then rotated over a gas grill. After they are roasted, the beans must be cracked into small bits better known as nibs while those that can�t are removed.

The next step is to grind the nibs into a cacao liqueur. For that, you will need a machine to liquefy this and at the same time separate the remaining husks that were not removed after roasting.

You then conch and refine the chocolate so you are able to give the chocolate its distinct taste. This is what makes Hershey�s chocolates different than for example M&M which can be achieved by using a powerful wet grinder.

You first have to melt the chocolate and the cocoa butter in the over at about 120 degrees Fahrenheit. You should then mix non fat dry milk powder, sugar, lecithin and a vanilla pod for about an hour. This mixture is then poured into a grinder together with some heat to keep the chocolate in liquid form. This should be refined for at least 10 hours but not more than 36 hours.

When it is ready, you then temper the chocolate so it looks shiny and soft enough to easily melt in your hand.

The second to the last part in making chocolate is to mold this into whatever shape or form that you would like. To produce these in vast quantities, chocolate companies but custom made molds. The chocolate is then poured there and after this is cooled, this is then packaged and ready for delivery to stores.

Some companies even sell these in the form of blocks so people can buy them, melt it and mold this to whatever shape they desire.

Making chocolate is easy as long as you have the equipment and all the ingredients needed. It doesn�t matter if this is produced in large volumes or in small quantities because the principle behind it is the same. If you want to learn more about making chocolate, sign up for some classes.