Bean-to-Bar

What does "Bean-to-Bar" chocolate mean?  Bean to Bar is the process of taking dried and fermented cacao beans, roasting them, removing the husks, cracking them into cacao nibs and stone grinding them with sugar for up to 48 hours to make what we know as chocolate!  It's a painstaking craft to enhance the natural flavor of the cacao beans procured from all over the world!

STEPS OF THE BEAN-TO-BAR CHOCOLATE MAKING PROCESS:

Assess the Beans:

Look for "flats"- or dried beans with no nibs inside and ensure there are no other debris

Roast the Beans - Up to 250 degrees or more depending on the bean:

Cool the Beans:

Crack & Winnow (Crack the beans, like a walnut to separate the "meat" from the shell/husk.  Winnowing blows air into the cracked nibs and uses a vacuum to draw the shells/husks upwind and allows the heavy nibs fall.)

Make chocolate by stone grinding the cacao nibs and organic sugar for up to 48 hours:

The chocolate is then ready to be tempered.  At A. Craft, we temper on cold marble:

The chocolate is then molded into bars:

Wrapped and packaged: