Chapter 10

THE MANUFACTURE OF COCOA AND CHOCOLATE

The Indians, from whom we borrow it, are not very nice in doing it; they roast the kernels in earthen pots, then free them from their skins, and afterwards crush and grind them between two stones, and so form cakes of it with their hands.

_Natural History of Chocolate_, R. Brookes, 1730.

_Early Methods in the Tropics._

As the cacao bean is grown in tropical countries, it is there that we must look for the first attempts at manufacturing from it a drink or a foodstuff. The primitive method of preparation was very simple, consisting in roasting the beans in a pot or on a shovel to develop their flavour, winnowing in the wind, and then rubbing the broken shelled beans between stones until quite fine. The curious thing is that on grinding the cacao bean in the heat of a tropical day we do not produce a powder but a paste. This is because half the cacao bean consists of a fat which is liquid at 90° F., a temperature which is reached in the shade in tropical countries. This paste was then made into small rolls and put in a cool place to set. Thus was produced the primitive unsweetened drinking chocolate. This is the method, which Elizabethans, who ventured into the tangled forests of equatorial America, found in use; and this is the method they brought home to Europe. In the tropics these simple processes are followed to this day, but in Europe they have undergone many elaborations and refinements.

If the reader will look at the illustration entitled "Women grinding chocolate," he will see how the brittle roasted bean is reduced to a paste in primitive manufacture. A stone, shaped like a rolling-pin, is being pushed to and fro over a concave slab, on which the smashed beans have already been reduced to a paste of a doughy consistency.

_Early European Manufacture._

The conversion of these small scale operations into the early factory process is well shown in the plate which I reproduce above from _Arts and Sciences_, published in 1768.

A certain atmosphere of dreamy intellectuality is associated with coffee, so that the roasting of it is felt to be a romantic occupation. The same poetic atmosphere surrounded the manufacture of drinking chocolate in the early days: the writers who revealed the secrets of its preparation were conscious that they were giving man a new æsthetic delight and the subject is treated lovingly and lingeringly. One, Pietro Metastasio, went so far as to write a "cantata" describing its manufacture. He describes the grinding as being done by a vigorous man, and truly, to grind by hand is a very laborious operation, which happily in more recent times has been performed by the use of power-driven mills.

Operations on a large scale followed the founding of Fry and Sons at Bristol in 1728, and of Lombart, "la plus ancienne chocolaterie de France," in Paris in 1760. In Germany the first chocolate factory was erected at Steinhunde in 1756, under the patronage of Prince Wilhelm, whilst in America the well-known firm of Walter Baker and Co. began in a small way in 1765. From the methods adopted in these factories have gradually developed the modern processes which I am about to describe.

MODERN PRACTICE.

As the early stages in the manufacture of cocoa and of chocolate are often identical, the processes which are common to both are first described, and then some individual consideration is given to each.

(_a_) _Arrival at the Factory._

The cacao is largely stored in warehouses, from which it is removed as required. It has remarkable keeping properties, and can be kept in a good store for several years without loss of quality. Samples of cacao beans in glass bottles have been found to be in perfect condition after thirty years. Some factories have stores in which stand thousands of bags of cacao drawn from many ports round the equator. There is something very pleasing about huge stacks of bags of cacao seen against the luminous white walls of a well-lighted store. The symmetry of their construction, and the continued repetition of the same form, are never better shown than when the men, climbing up the sides of a stack against which they look small, unbuild the mighty heap, the bags falling on to a continuous band which carries them jauntily out of the store.

(_b_) _Sorting the Beans._

As all cacao is liable to contain a little free shell, dried pulp (often taken for twigs), threads of sacking and other foreign matter, it is very carefully sieved and sorted before passing on to the roasting shop. In this process curios are occasionally separated, such as palm kernels, cowrie shells, shea butter nuts, good luck seeds and "crab's eyes." The essential part of one type of machine (_see illustration_) which accomplishes this sorting is an inclined revolving cylinder of wire gauze along which the beans pass. The cylinder forms a continuous set of sieves of different sized mesh, one sieve allowing only sand to pass, another only very small beans or fragments of beans, and finally one holding back anything larger than single beans (_e.g._, "cobs," that is, a collection of two or more beans stuck together).

Another type of cleaning machine is illustrated by the diagram on the opposite page.

This machine with its shaking sieves and blast of air makes a great clatter and fuss. It produces, however, what the manufacturers desire--a clean bean sorted to size.

(_c_) _Roasting the Beans._

As with coffee so with cacao, the characteristic flavour and aroma are only developed on roasting. Messrs. Bainbridge and Davies (chemists to Messrs. Rowntree) have shown that the aroma of cacao is chiefly due to an amazingly minute quantity (0.0006 per cent.) of linalool, a colourless liquid with a powerful fragrant odour, a modification of which occurs in bergamot, coriander and lavender. Everyone notices the aromatic odour which permeates the atmosphere round a chocolate factory. This odour is a bye-product of the roasting shop; possibly some day an enterprising chemist will prevent its escape or capture it, and sell it in bottles for flavouring confectionery, but for the present it serves only to announce in an appetising way the presence of a cocoa or chocolate works.

Roasting is a delicate operation requiring experience and discretion. Even in these days of scientific management it remains as much an art as a science. It is conducted in revolving drums to ensure constant agitation, the drums being heated either over coke fires or by gas. Less frequently the heating is effected by a hot blast of air or by having inside the drum a number of pipes containing super-heated steam.

The diagram and photo show one of the types of roasting machines used at Bournville. It resembles an ordinary coffee roaster, the beans being fed in through a hopper and heated by gas in the slowly revolving cylinder. The beans can be heard lightly tumbling one over the other, and the aroma round the roaster increases in fullness as they get hotter and hotter. The temperature which the beans reach in ordinary roasting is not very high, varying round 135° C. (275° F), and the average period of roasting is about one hour. The amount of loss of weight on roasting is considerable (some seven or eight per cent.), and varies with the amount of moisture present in the raw beans.

There have been attempts to replace the æsthetic judgment of man, as to the point at which to stop roasting, by scientific machinery. One rather interesting machine was so devised that the cacao roasting drum was fitted with a sort of steelyard, and this, when the loss of weight due to roasting had reached a certain amount, swung over and rang a bell, indicating dramatically that the roasting was finished. As beans vary amongst other things in the percentage of moisture which they contain, the machine has not replaced the experienced operator. He takes samples from the drum from time to time, and when the aroma has the character desired, the beans are rapidly discharged into a trolley with a perforated bottom, which is brought over a cold current of air. The object of this refinement is to stop the roasting instantly and prevent even a suspicion of burning.

After roasting, the shell is brittle and quite free from the cotyledons or kernel. The kernel has become glossy and friable and chocolate brown in colour, and it crushes readily between the fingers into small angular fragments (the "nibs" of commerce), giving off during the breaking down a rich warm odour of chocolate.

(_d_) _Removing the Shells._

It has been stated (see _Fatty Foods_, by Revis and Bolton) that it was formerly the practice not to remove the shell. This is incorrect, the more usual practice from the earliest times has been to remove the shells, though not so completely as they are removed by the efficient machinery of to-day.

In _A Curious Treatise on the Nature and Quality of Chocolate_, by Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma (1685), we read: "And if you peel the cacao, and take it out of its little shell, the drink thereof will be more dainty and delicious." Willoughby, in his _Travels in Spain_, (1664), writes: "They first toast the berries to get off the husk," and R. Brookes, in the _Natural History of Chocolate_ (1730), says: "The Indians ... roast the kernels in earthen pots, then free them from their skins, and afterwards crush and grind them between two stones."

He further definitely recommends that the beans "be roasted enough to have their skins come off easily, which should be done one by one, laying them apart ... for these skins being left among the chocolate, will not dissolve in any liquor, nor even in the stomach, and fall to the bottom of the chocolate-cups as if the kernels had not been cleaned."

That the "Indian" practice of removing the shells was followed from the commencement of the industry in England, is shown by the old plate which we have reproduced on p. 120 from _Arts and Sciences_.

The removal of the shell, which in the raw condition is tough and adheres to the kernel, is greatly facilitated by roasting. If we place a roasted bean in the palm of the hand and press it with the thumb, the whole cracks up into crisp pieces. It is now quite easy to blow away the thin pieces of shell because they offer a greater surface to the air and are lighter than the compact little lumps or "nibs" which are left behind. This illustrates the principle of all shelling or husking machines.

(_e_) _Breaking the Bean into Fragments._

The problem is to break down the bean to just the right size. The pieces must be sufficiently small to allow the nib and shell readily to part company, but it is important to remember that the smaller the pieces of shell and nib, the less efficient will the winnowing be, and it is usual to break the beans whilst they are still warm to avoid producing particles of extreme fineness. The breaking down may be accomplished by passing the beans through a pair of rollers at such a distance apart that the bean is cracked without being crushed. Or it may be effected in other ways, _e.g._, by the use of an adjustable serrated cone revolving in a serrated conical case. In the diagram they are called kibbling cones.

(_f_) _Separating the Germs._

About one per cent. of the cacao bean fragments consists of "germs." The "germ" is the radicle of the cacao seed, or that part of the cacao seed which on germination forms the root. The germs are small and rod-shaped, and being very hard are generally assumed to be less digestible than the nib. They are separated by being passed through revolving gauze drums, the holes in which are the same size and shape as the germs, so that the germs pass through whilst the nib is retained. If a freakish carpenter were to try separating shop-floor sweepings, consisting of a jumble of chunks of wood (nib), shavings (shell) and nails (germ) by sieving through a grid-iron, he would find that not only the nails passed through but also some sawdust and fine shavings. So in the above machine the finer nib and shell pass through with the germ. This germ mixture, known as "smalls" is dealt with in a special machine, whilst the larger nib and shell are conveyed to the chief winnowing machine. In this machine the mixture is first sorted according to size and then the nib and shell separated from one another. The mixture is passed down long revolving cylindrical sieves and encounters a larger and larger mesh as it proceeds, and thus becomes sieved into various sizes. The separation of the shell from the nib is now effected by a powerful current of air, the large nib falling against the current, whilst the shell is carried with it and drops into another compartment. It is amusing to stand and watch the continuous stream of nibs rushing down, like hail in a storm, into the screw conveyor.

This is the process in essence--to follow the various partially separated mixtures of shell and nib through the several further separating machines would be tedious; it is sufficient for the reader to know that after the most elaborate precautions have been taken the nib still contains about one per cent. of shell, and that the nib obtained is only 78.5 per cent. of the weight of raw beans originally taken. Most of the larger makers of cocoa produce nib containing less than two per cent. of shell, a standard which can only be maintained by continuous vigilance.

The shell, the only waste material of any importance produced in a chocolate factory, goes straight into sacks ready for sale. The pure cacao nibs (once an important article of commerce) proceed to the blenders and thence to the grinding mill.

(_g_) _Blending._

We have seen that the beans are roasted separately according to their kind and country so as to develop in each its characteristic flavour. The pure nib is now blended in proportions which are carefully chosen to attain the result desired.

(_h_) _Grinding the Cacao Nibs to Produce Mass._

In this process, by the mere act of grinding, the miracle is performed of converting the brittle fragments of the cacao bean into a chocolate-coloured fluid. Half of the cacao bean is fat, and the grinding breaks up the cells and liberates the fat, which at blood heat melts to an oil. Any of the various machines used in the industries for grinding might be used, but a special type of mill has been devised for the purpose.

In the grinding room of a cocoa factory one becomes almost hypnotised by a hundred of these circular mill-stones that rotate incessantly day and night. In Messrs. Fry's factory the "giddy motion of the whirling mill" is very much increased by a number of magnificent horizontal driving wheels, each some 20 feet in diameter, which form, as it were, a revolving ceiling to the room. Your fascinated gaze beholds "two or three vast circles, that have their revolving satellites like moons, each on its own axis, and each governed by master wheels. Watch them for any length of time and you might find yourself presently going round and round with them until you whirled yourself out of existence, like the gyrating maiden in the fairy tale."

In this type of grinding machine one mill stone rotates on a fixed stone. The cacao nib falls from a hopper through a hole in the centre of the upper stone and, owing to the manner in which grooves are cut in the two surfaces in contact, is gradually dragged between the stones. The grooves are so cut in the two stones that they point in opposite directions, and as the one stone revolves on the other, a slicing or shearing action is produced. The friction, due to the slicing and shearing of the nib, keeps the stones hot, and they become sufficiently warm to melt the fat in the ground nib, so that there oozes from the outer edge of the bottom or fixed stone a more or less viscous liquid or paste. This finely ground nib is known as "mass." It is simply liquified cacao bean, and solidifies on cooling to a chocolate coloured block.

This "mass" may be used for the production of either cocoa or chocolate. When part of the fat (cacao butter) is _taken away_ the residue may be made to yield cocoa. When sugar and cacao butter are _added_ it yields eating chocolate. Thus the two industries are seen to be inter-dependent, the cacao butter which is pressed out of the mass in the manufacture of cocoa being used up in the production of chocolate. The manufacture of cocoa will first be considered.

(_i_) _Pressing out the excess of Butter._

The liquified cacao bean or "mass," simply mixed with sugar and cooled until it becomes a hard cake, has been used by the British Navy for a hundred years or more for the preparation of Jack's cup of cocoa. It produces a fine rich drink much appreciated by our hardy seamen, but it is somewhat too fatty to mix evenly with water, and too rich to be suitable for those with delicate digestions. Hence for the ordinary cocoa of commerce it is usual to remove a portion of this fat.

If "mass" be put into a cloth and pressed, a golden oil (melted cacao butter) oozes through the cloth. In practice this extraction of the butter is done in various types of presses. In one of the most frequently used types, the mass is poured into circular steel pots, the top and bottom of which are loose perforated plates lined with felt pads. A number of such pots are placed one above another, and then rammed together by a powerful hydraulic ram. They look like the parts of a slowly collapsing telescope. The "mass" is only gently pressed at first, but as the butter flows away and the material in the pot becomes stiffer, it is subjected to a gradually increasing pressure. The ram, being under pressure supplied by pumps, pushes up with enormous force. The steel pots have to be sufficiently strong to bear a great strain, as the ram often exerts a pressure of 6,000 pounds per square inch. When the required amount of butter has been pressed out, the pot is found to contain not a paste, but a hard dry cake of compressed cocoa. The liquified cacao bean put into the pots contains 54 to 55 per cent. of butter, whilst the cocoa press-cake taken out usually contains only 25 to 30 per cent. The expressed butter flows away and is filtered and solidified (see page 158). All that it is necessary to do to obtain cocoa from the press cake is to powder it.

(_j_) _Breaking Down the Press Cake to Cocoa Powder._

The slabs of press-cake are so hard and tough that if one were banged on a man's head it would probably stun him. They are broken down in a crushing mill, the inside of which is as full of terrible teeth as a giant's mouth, until the fragments are small enough to grind on steel rollers.

(_k_) _Sieving._

As fineness is a very important quality of cocoa, the powder so obtained is very carefully sieved. This is effected by shaking the powder into an inclined rotating drum which is covered with silk gauze. In the cocoa which passes through this fine silk sieve, the average length of the individual particles is about 0.001 inch, whilst in first-class productions the size of the larger particles in the cocoa does not average more than 0.002 inch. Indeed, the cocoa powder is so fine that in spite of all precautions a certain amount always floats about in the air of sieving rooms, and covers everything with a brown film.

(_l_) _Packing._

The cocoa powder is taken to the packing rooms. Here the tedious weighing by hand has been replaced by ingenious machines, which deliver with remarkable accuracy a definite weight of cocoa into the paper bag which lines the tin. The tins are then labelled and packed in cases ready for the grocer.