Paul Zipperer

“ The cleansing and sorting of the raw cacao bean is the most important factor in the manufacture of chocolate, and yield a manifold return, for inferior and cheaper kinds of bean which have passed through these processes can be advantageously mixed with finer varieties. The chief object of cleansing and sorting is the removal of foreign bodies and such chance admixtures as sand, pebbles, and fragments of sacking, which are liable to damage the stones used in grinding at a later stage of the preparation, or communicate an unnatural and disagreeable smell to the subsequent roast products. ”

“ Sufficient attention is not always paid to the operation of pressing, so that it often happens that some of the cacao escapes with the butter, which is especially the case if the pressure has been increased too rapidly at the beginning. If the butter is extracted for use in the factory itself, the escape of the cacao with it is of no serious consequence; if, however, the butter is intended for sale for commercial purposes, its appearance is a most important factor, wherefore it is advisable to filter the impure fat immediately after pressing. ”

“ Up to ten years ago, the crushing and shelling of cacao beans had not been so far perfected as to effect the complete separation of husk and radicle from all particles of kernel, or to prevent loss by isolating and collecting the minute particles of kernel, which are drawn up through the exhaust apparatus in conjunction with the lightest of the cacao shells. Yet the requirements demanded of a satisfactory machine advanced to such an extent that not only cacao nibs free from shell were postulated—an end scarcely hard to attain—but shells free from cacao nibs were made a further essential. ”

“ The first information regarding the cultivation of the cacao tree in Mexico is that obtained on the invasion of the country by the Spaniards. Prior to that time there is a total absence of anything definite. The tree flourishes best in situations where the mean temperature is between 24° and 28° C. The farther the place of cultivation from the equator the poorer is the product. The other most essential conditions are long continued moisture of the soil and a soft, loose texture with abundance of humus, and above all, shelter from the direct rays of the sun. ”

“ In the treatment of the cacao, salt solution and cacao are together introduced into a melangeur, or better into the kneading and mixing machine, and the apparatus being set in working order, steam enters, and removes the quantities of water which have been added, as well as the volatile alkalis. Whether all the water has been driven off or no can only be judged from the consistency of the mass after treatment, and it is just this that renders the process of little value. ”

“ All good chocolates are of a fine brown colour. Grey-coloured or spotted chocolate are objectionable. Spots or the grey colour alluded to may be caused either by damp or heat. At an ordinary temperature the fracture of the chocolate is hard, glassy and even. The quality of the fracture constitutes an excellent basis in judging of the manner and methods employed in working up the raw material.
Cacao and chocolate that become thick and pulpy on boiling are in all probability adulterated with meal, starch, dextrine or resin. ”

“ If the chocolates made from beans rich in oil contain too much fat to mould properly, a small percentage of their constituent cacao mass can be replaced by cocoa powder made from the same kind of bean, but defatted, in the case of the finer qualities; and when inferior varieties are under consideration, the same result may be attained by a sufficient increase in the proportion of their other constituent, sugar, as e. g. 55-60 parts of to 45 or 40 parts of cacao mass, so disturbing the usual equality of the two ingredients mixed together. ”

“ In most lands where cacao is cultivated, another process is adopted, calculated to heighten the flavour of the fruit and develop its nutritious constituents. The newly gathered beans are first partially freed from the fruity substances always adhering, then piled up into heaps and covered with banana skins or cocoa-nut matting, in order that they may be shut off as far as possible from all atmospheric influence, and so left for some time, while the chemical processes of warming and fermentation are gradually consummating. ”

“ The rooms where chocolate wares are stored should not be too warm, and it is indispensable that they be kept dry, for heat accelerates the volatilisation of their aroma and also the rancidity to which cacao is liable, whilst moisture spoils the general appearance of the chocolate and promotes the growth of mould. ”

“ There is no exception to the rule that only beans of one and the same kind should be roasted and broken up together, as thickness or thinness of the shells determines to a large extent the time required for roasting, and also an even size of bean is necessary to the smooth operation of the breaking machine. The husks of the roasted cacao bean are hygroscopic, and consequently the roasted unshelled beans contain more moisture after having been kept for a time, than they do in the raw state ”

“ When readily melting chocolates were first introduced, it was a prevailing opinion that the required property could only be obtained by increasing the amount of fatty content. Now the excessive evidence of fat in chocolates is very objectionable, both as regards taste and digestibility. To avoid this, therefore, the chocolates are treated mechanically, to attain the required character of readily melting. The machines used for that purpose are termed “Conches”, because the trough, in which the chocolate is rubbed into a long cylinder, has somewhat the shape of a long shell. ”

“ Cattle not only readily get accustomed to the fodder but subsequently take to it with eagerness. The best results were obtained with Dutch, Swiss and Parmesan milch cows. After 10 days feeding the butter and milk-sugar had increased, as well as the daily average yield of milk from 44 to 49·5 kilogrammes. As soon as the feeding with cacao husk was discontinued the yield of milk decreased. Faelli concludes that cacao husk, which can be used as a fodder up to 4 kilog. daily, exercises a very favourable influence on milch cows, and he purposes to continue the investigation with horses. ”

“ The most suitable cooling chamber is an underground space which should, however, be so situated as to be in convenient communication with the moulding room. The cheapest and simplest place for a cooling chamber is a cellar, if it be properly constructed and dry, as well as large enough to contain the quantity of chocolate made in one day’s working. The best temperature to be kept up ranges from 8° to 10° C. Within those limits there is no danger of the chocolate being coated with moisture, or that it will acquire a coarse grained texture by lying too long. ”

“ Levigation.
An extreme fineness and homogeneity of the chocolate mass is obtained in the employment of cylindrical rolling machines, for the construction of which we are indebted to G. Hermann of Paris. Every kind of chocolate must be passed through the rolling machine at least once or twice even when finely powdered sugar is used, though in this case it is less a question of sub-division than of incorporation and intermixture. The best qualities are passed through the machine from six to eight times, or even more. The mass is finally fed into the machine in cold blocks and so ground off. ”

“ It has been maintained by Benedikt48 that when in the form of chocolate it is as easily digestible in the human organism as milk fat, which is generally regarded as offering most favourable conditions for absorbtion in the intestinal canal. The digestibility of both fats varies from 92·3 to 95·38 percent, and both, in this respect, stand very near to cocoa-nut fat from which the solid glycerides have been removed, and to ordinary butter, the former according to Bourot and Jean.49 being digestible to the extent of 98 and the latter 95·8 percent. ”

“ The treatment, which the cacao here undergoes, is so barbarous, that the product must always be spoiled. The only point attained is the complete gelatinisation of the starch, which by further heating is to some extent converted into dextrin. Caramelizing cannot and will not take place by heating gelatinised starch in mixtures with a dry substance, as it occurs in cacao. But in addition, the claim is weak that cacao so mistreated would be especially suitable for diabetics, since cacao serves that purpose a great deal better. ”

“ Art. 138. It is illegal to sell or expose for sale artificially dyed and pulverised cacao, and also such as has been mixed with starch meals, foreign fats or any other foreign ingredients. It is in like manner illegal to mix cocoa powder with shells, and the former may not contain more than a maximum 15% of powdered shell.223
Art. 139. Under the designation “Chocolate”, only the foodstuff prepared from a mixture of roasted and powdered bean and sugar, with or without admixture of aromatic ingredients, as vanilla, cinnamon and the like substances, may be sold and exposed for sale. ”

“ The kernel of the fresh bean, “Nips”, is white and has a bitter taste and alternates in colour between whitish yellow, rose and violet; the mere influence of solar heat is sufficient to produce the brown cacao pigment, but drying is not so effective as fermentation in removing the harsh bitter taste and hence fermented beans are always to be preferred. These have often acquired a darker colour in the process, their weight is considerably diminished, and their flavour modified to an oily sweetness, without losing an atom of the original aroma13. ”

“ The cacao material issuing from the machine must be just as liquid as when it comes out of the triturating mills, and so long as it appears as a glucose substance, which very often happens where unsuitable mixing machines are employed, so surely will it contain water, and this may lead to the growth of mould or to the cacao developing a grey colour when packed in boxes. ”

“ In cacao they are apparently present in the three different conditions.
The term vegetable albumen, in its more restricted sense, is meant to designate a protein substance which is soluble in water and is coagulable by heat. The greater part of the proteid which exists in the seeds and sap of plants and is coagulable by heat, is not albumin but globulin, that is to say, it is insoluble in water, though dissolved by solutions of neutral salts. ”

“ Rare sorts are nowhere to be met with, for the Forastero bean has conquered the whole of Africa. The sorts produced are accordingly rather adapted for general consumption. St. Thomas and the Gold Coast provide a third of the world’s present-day cacao supply, and in the English colony especially, the geological and climatic conditions are of such a kind, that the
Gold Coast might very well become to the raw cacao market of the future what the Brazilian province, San Paulo, is now to the coffee trade. ”

“ The cause of this phenomenon may be connected with the enrichment of the shells in fat, and in some instances, as when the beans are over-roasted, is to be ascribed to the chemical change which the play of burning heat on fatty bodies involves, when a destructive decomposition of the whole ensues, with formations of acroleine. Chemically considered, cacao butter consists of a mixture of so-called esters, or compounds connected with ether, such as the glycerides of fatty acids, and contains, in addition to stearine, palmatine, and laurine26, the glyceride of arachidic acid. ”

“ Generally, chocolate presents the finest fracture when it has been fully levigated and when it contains a considerable amount of fat, provided that the fat present is only cacao butter. Those kinds which are not so well levigated, or have had some addition of foreign fat of higher melting point, show an inferior fracture. ”

“ A thorough mixing with sugar can only be effected when the cacao paste is heated to a temperature rather above the melting point of cacao butter, that is to say, as high as from 35° to 40° C., and consequently the incorporating machine in which that operation is carried on is provided with a steam jacket. For this process it is advisable to have the chocolate in a semi-liquid condition, wherefore the ground cacao issuing from the mills is transferred to steam-heated vessels (fig. 27) fitted with taps suitable for drawing off the mass as it is required. ”

“ The term glucoside may be noted in passing as including those bodies, the greater number of which occur in plants, and which by treatment with alkalis, acids or ferments are split up into an indifferent body and a sugar, generally glucose. These bodies may be chemically regarded as ethyl derivatives of the respective sugars. When the ripe, white seeds are dried, the cacao-glycoside is partly decomposed by the agency of the above-mentioned diastasic ferment and formations of grape sugar, pure non-nitrogenous cacao-red, together with theobromine and coffeine ensue. ”