How chocolates are made from cocoa beans

I want to share some information on how chocolates are made from cocoa beans. There are few step in making chocolate from the cocoa beans which are harvesting of cocoa beans, fermenting, drying, roasting, cracking and segregate, grinding, tempering and lastly moulding.

So, this is the photo of cocoa beans. First of all it begin with the harvesting process. The ripe cocoa pods harvested twice a year but the harvest time is different depend on a region to another region. The pods will be cut open by machetes and the white pulp is taken out from the pods. 

The second step is fermenting of the cocoa. The pods and pulp is then put into large wooden container s within a week. This process will help it to ferment more evenly and developing the flavour of the chocolate. The next step is drying. After fermentation process, the cocoa beans will be drying spreadly under the sun at long period until it completely dry.

After that proceed by the roasting process that be done by the chocolate maker. The chocolate is usually made in cooler climates because the hot climates required to grow cocoa makes the chocolate making process more challenging. The use of standard ovens or other have speciall made systems designed to rotate the beans and roast as evenly and accurately as possible. 

Followed by the cracking and segregate process. Where the beans are need to be crack open and the shell is removed. Leaving the pieces of pure cocoa bean called "nibs". After that, grinding process using a machine called melanger. It is a simply large metal cylinder with two rotating granite wheels that grind the chocolate into very small particles. There are also some flavourings are added to the the chocolate such as sugar, milk powder for milk chocolate and others.

Next step is tempering. It is the controlled process of raising, lowering and raising the temperature of the chocolate to form exactly the right kind of  crystals so the chocolate would not be soft and crumbly and would melt evenly on the tongue. Lastly, the moulding process. Where the chocolate is formed in bar shape. The finished chocolate bar is poured into a mould. The melted chocolate is poured into the plastic bar-shaped moulds. For larger chocolate maker  will have machines and conveyors that deposit exactly the right amount of chocolate.