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<\/a>The oven was preheated to 250\u00baF but my gauge indicated that it was closer to 275\u00baF. \u00a0The beans were in the oven for 25 minutes. I reduced to 200\u00baF at about 20 minutes. \u00a0The smell started out acidic at first, and smoothly progressed to a deep dark brownie smell.<\/p>\n After those 25 minutes, you could barely tell that they had changed, but could see that they were a bit drier. \u00a0If you look closer, you could see that they were in actuality roasted. \u00a0The first bean that I picked up was easy to peel, and you could see how the nibs came together.<\/p>\n Step 2<\/strong><\/span> was to crack and shell the nibs. \u00a0At first, I tried to keep them whole, but realized quickly that it was a pointless effort. \u00a0So I went to town on them and cracked and broke them however I could (I even tried using a cleaned coffee grinder). \u00a0The result…<\/p>\n Step 3<\/span><\/strong> was to winnow the husks from the nibs. \u00a0I used my wife’s hairdryer to do the trick, outside in 17\u00baF weather… (Yay!!). \u00a0This part of the process was the one that had me the most concerned originally, as I was afraid I was going to blow away a lot of useable raw material. \u00a0It turns out that using a shallow mix bowl did the trick. \u00a0The only thing that was tricky was holding the hairdryer at the same time as motioning the bowl in a circular pattern with a little lift.\u00a0After a few minutes, the results:<\/p>\n It was interesting, at this point to notice that some of the beans that had not broken up into nibs had different colors. \u00a0I am not sure if it’s a product of the roasting or a product of the batch itself. \u00a0I am also not sure how that will affect the taste at the end.<\/p>\n Step 4<\/strong><\/span> was to grind the beans into a cacao liquor. \u00a0Now one thing to notice is that the nibs look very hard, and one would hardly believe there is any liquor or liquid material there. \u00a0Yes there are oils, but really it\u00a0looked<\/em> like you would get only a little oil out of them.<\/p>\n So I pulled out our trusty Breville Juicer which we have not used in a while and were considering parting ways with.<\/p>\n The juicer is pretty robust and is designed to extract juice out of harder vegetables\/fruit. \u00a0So I thought I could be careful and try it out. \u00a0So in went the nibs!<\/p>\n Round 1: Pretty much turned everything to dust… But looking in, I saw something else…<\/p>\n The first sign of chocolate\u00a0liquor!<\/p>\n So overall, I think this was a decent first push, but definitely need to learn from the incident with the filter and find a good work-around. \u00a0I may get a manual grinder (cheaper)… we’ll see…<\/p>\n The expedition continues!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Following on my update from last night (with more photos now). It all started really well. Step 1 was to lay the cacao beans on a cookie sheet and preheat the oven. The oven was preheated to 250\u00baF but my gauge indicated that it was closer to 275\u00baF. \u00a0The beans were in the oven for … Continue reading More on the First Trial<\/span> <\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>
\nRound 2: Well I guess dust can be turned into dust further…
\nRound 3: Ok… more dust… now it’s getting out of the machine…
\nRound 4: Oh, the dust is start to clump a little… interesting!
\nRound 5: Ahh Liqui… BAM! A loud popping sound! \u00a0At first I thought it was the motor that had gone (it came so suddenly), but the machine was still working with now abnormal noises. So I turned it off, and started to take it apart. \u00a0Looking in, I saw that the filter basket had ripped apart. \u00a0Likely from the amount of pressure caused by the dense crust of cacao dust that was forming.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>