Bad beans

6th July 2021

Ingredients

Attempting to replicate the ruined batch 5, we used the same ratios for a 70% batch with 10% added cocoa butter:

752g cocoa nibs
376g cane sugar
125g cocoa butter

Roasting

We tried to match the roast from batch 5, and ended up with:

52 minutes at 110C

The beans had a different flavour to our other roasts, with an unpleasant sharp taste. We roasted longer than last time in an attempt to bring out the chocolatey flavour, but the sharp, bad taste lingered.

Refining

We used the heat gun to help get the nibs started in the melanger this time which seemed to speed up the process. We tasted the chocolate as it was refining, but the unpleasant flavour stuck around and didn’t seem to be improving, so we gave up waiting and used the batch to practice tempering and moulding.

25.5 hours

Tasting

The chocolate retained the awful flavour that we noticed in the beans, and was not at all nice to eat.

Notes

In future, if the beans seem off, we won’t continue making the batch.