Chocolate Percentages & Temperatures

After five years of chocolate study and practice, you might think that during my reading of the Greweling chocolate bible (Chocolates & Confections), I'd skip over the opening chapters on the bean-to-bar process, equipment, ingredients, and tempering. I didn't. This week, I reviewed the second and third chapters and, while I admittedly did skim some of the familiar content, I read the vast majority of it because it's a good reminder of details that I may have forgotten. As a result, I also found two nuggets of new information.

The first was regarding chocolate percentages. I think we all assume we understand those numbers -- the higher the number, the darker the chocolate and the lower the number, the lighter the chocolate. But Greweling notes, "surprisingly few professionals seem to understand the number, its significance, or what it does and does not tell us about the chocolate" (p.35). Well, okay, Peter, you've got my attention!" 

Greweling goes on to explain that the number tells you what portion of the chocolate came from the cacao tree, but it tells you nothing about the ratio of chocolate liquor to cocoa butter. Consequently, two bars of the same percentage "can be radically different from each other." One could have added cocoa butter that would result in a less intense flavour. Now, of course it's important to note that those two bars could be radically different for a number of other reasons, including the origin of the beans, but we're simplifying things here to focus on percentage. And if you subtract the percentage listed on the bar from 100, that will give you the percentage of all the other ingredients (sugar, milk products, flavourings like vanilla, etc). 

So, while that percentage can tell you how much of your chocolate bar came from a cacao tree and is "real" chocolate, and give you some indication of "relative sweetness," it can't tell you anything about the flavour or quality of the chocolate, or the ratio of chocolate liquor to cocoa butter. 

The other nugget in Greweling's introductory chapters was regarding the melting point of cocoa butter. During my chocolatier program, we were given guidelines to follow for tempering dark, milk, and white chocolate. These included maximum temperatures for melting before beginning the tempering process. I always wondered why the tempering curve on the bag of Callebaut callets didn't align with those guidelines (in fact, the maximum temperature is much higher than we were instructed). The answer may be in Greweling's explanation of the melting point of cocoa butter. 

Not all cocoa butter is created equal, it seems and they can have different melting points. He notes, "Cocoa butter from beans grown near the Equator, such as those from Malaysia, tends to have a slightly higher melting point than cocoa butter pressed from beans grown in more moderate climates, such as Brazil" (p. 27). This impacts the tempering curve, as well as the working and handling temperatures. It would be interesting to research the source of the Callebaut beans to see if this aligns. 

In any event, there's always something new to learn! And I'm looking forward to reading more next week!