Chocolate from Bean to Bar • Hacker News Board

Re: Chocolate from Bean to Bar

#41

Post by BugsJustFindMe » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 3:56 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #34

The article brings this up, but I'd say that in general home "bean to bar" chocolate isn't worth it unless you have chocolate conche machine, which you can get for about $300-$500 online. Otherwise you're going to end up with something quite gritty with a bad mouthfeel.

> chocolate isn't worth it unless you have chocolate conche machine

This, like many other ideas about roasted bean products, is a silly universalization of some individual's arbitrary preference. It's like saying that all mushrooms _must_ be minced because someone didn't like the texture of whole mushrooms at one point. Or that coffee beans must be Arabica for...reasons...when billions of people preferentially drink Robusta.

I love unconched chocolate and strongly prefer it over conched. Taza in Somerville, MA is regionally famous for their delicious, distinct, gritty unconched chocolate.

Re: Chocolate from Bean to Bar

#42

Post by jcims » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 4:06 PM UTC

corpMaverick wrote: post #24

jcims wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just had a long conversation about morel mushrooms last night. They fit nicely in this category. Hands down the best mushroom I’ve ever eaten. Probably because they look like a brain on a stick.

Just to add to your list a couple of delicacies from Mexico. Maguey worms and Escamoles(Ant eggs).

I ate some ants, primate style with a stick, to mess with my kids and some of their friends at a party. They were surprisingly tasty. I don't know if it was the ants or the pine tar that was stuck to them but something gave me horrible gas pains for a day lol.

Re: Chocolate from Bean to Bar

#43

Post by pezzana » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 4:11 PM UTC

> Alright, so the cacao has some natural oil in each of the beans, this stuff is what is known as cacao butter, depending on how well we were able to grind this down, the cacao butter will express itself in the powder we have here. However, as you can see this isn’t very oily looking, so we will need to bolster this with cacao butter. To my 120 grams of cacao nibs, I am added initially 20 grams of cacao butter, (but added another 10 later).

This was a little disappointing to see. But I think it would be a great follow-up topic to show how to make your own cacao butter.

Re: Chocolate from Bean to Bar

#44

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 4:14 PM UTC

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #41

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #34

The article brings this up, but I'd say that in general home "bean to bar" chocolate isn't worth it unless you have chocolate conche machine, which you can get for about $300-$500 online. Otherwise you're going to end up with something quite gritty with a bad mouthfeel.

> chocolate isn't worth it unless you have chocolate conche machine This, like many other ideas about roasted bean products, is a silly universalization of some individual's arbitrary preference. It's like saying that all mushrooms _must_ be minced because someone didn't like the texture of whole mushrooms at one point. Or that coffee beans must be Arabica for... reasons ...when billions of people preferentially drin…

I mean, yes, obviously a post to a public comment board is going to reflect my own personal preference. While I haven't had the particular brand you mention, I have tried many other versions of stone-ground chocolates, and they always taste like chocolate with sand to me. To each their own, though.

Re: Chocolate from Bean to Bar

#45

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 4:32 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #34

The article brings this up, but I'd say that in general home "bean to bar" chocolate isn't worth it unless you have chocolate conche machine, which you can get for about $300-$500 online. Otherwise you're going to end up with something quite gritty with a bad mouthfeel.

[deleted]

Re: Chocolate from Bean to Bar

#46

Post by BugsJustFindMe » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 4:39 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #44

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> chocolate isn't worth it unless you have chocolate conche machine This, like many other ideas about roasted bean products, is a silly universalization of some individual's arbitrary preference. It's like saying that all mushrooms _must_ be minced because someone didn't like the texture of whole mushrooms at one point. Or that coffee beans must be Arabica for... reasons ...when billions of people preferentially drin…

I mean, yes, obviously a post to a public comment board is going to reflect my own personal preference. While I haven't had the particular brand you mention, I have tried many other versions of stone-ground chocolates, and they always taste like chocolate with sand to me. To each their own, though.

> I mean, yes, obviously a post to a public comment board is going to reflect my own personal preference.

Ok. There's a difference in public discourse between "I personally didn't like the feel of the unconched chocolates I tried" and a universalized claim about what is or isn't "in general worth it" for someone else ("you"/"you're") to do.

Saying that someone else shouldn't do something because you don't like it imagines yourself as the universal subject.

Re: Chocolate from Bean to Bar

#47

Post by jeffreyrogers » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 4:51 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #34

The article brings this up, but I'd say that in general home "bean to bar" chocolate isn't worth it unless you have chocolate conche machine, which you can get for about $300-$500 online. Otherwise you're going to end up with something quite gritty with a bad mouthfeel.

I personally like the grittier chocolates, but that might be uncommon.

Re: Chocolate from Bean to Bar

#48

Post by johannes1234321 » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 4:56 PM UTC

bedobi wrote: post #3

countless plant and animal species have evolved and died out throughout the history of life on Earth humans have existed only for a tiny fraction of the duration of the history of complex life on Earth but somehow humans managed to co-exist with chocolate, sugarcane, vanilla, bovids (cow milk, steak), coffee and any number of stupidly tasty things I'm not going anywhere with this comment but, like, wow, no!? if human…

Humans develop slowly (long living with few children making long time between generations) than many other things (more rapid generations, more generations in same time) thus things that depend on their seeds to be spread become better more quickly than taste develops also the ones successful in that spread more.

In addition human culture consciously breeds the good fruits etc. just look how some plants have been turned into monocultures. Most bananas we buy are clones of a variant that was deemed good. For other things humans did centuries or even millennia of selection.

Re: Chocolate from Bean to Bar

#49

Post by daniel_reetz » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 5:00 PM UTC

SyzygistSix wrote: post #20

rwmj wrote: post #2

This was an interesting series of blog posts about a (supposedly) bean to bar chocolate maker: https://dallasfood.org/2015/12/mast-brothers-what-lies-behin... https://dallasfood.org/2015/12/mast-brothers-what-lies-behin... https://dallasfood.org/2015/12/mast-brothers-what-lies-behin... https://dallasfood.org/2015/12/mast-brothers-what-lies-behin...

As a former chocolate maker for small, ethically-sourced chocolate company, this was both hilarious and disheartening to read about when it came out. The Mast Bros have kind of stood out in the industry for being tools.

Fascinating. One of the better bars of chocolate I ever had was a Mast bar with nibs. Later, I bought some of their other bars and they were markedly different. Having read this, I wonder which (if any) were actually Mast chocolate.

Re: Chocolate from Bean to Bar

#50

Post by pstuart » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 5:10 PM UTC

bedobi wrote: post #3

countless plant and animal species have evolved and died out throughout the history of life on Earth humans have existed only for a tiny fraction of the duration of the history of complex life on Earth but somehow humans managed to co-exist with chocolate, sugarcane, vanilla, bovids (cow milk, steak), coffee and any number of stupidly tasty things I'm not going anywhere with this comment but, like, wow, no!? if human…

> if humans had evolved a couple of million years earlier, or any of those stupidly tasty things had evolved a couple of million years later, we wouldn't have been able to experience them

Proof that there is a God! /s