Question on roasting and brewing cacao beans

One of my wife's friends somehow persuaded me to roast some cacao beans for her. She had fresh brewed cacao once and learning that I roasted my own coffee, persuaded me that I was perfectly suited now to do the same with cacao beans.

I bit.

Too much to chew.

Anyway, I've roasted about a half pound of some fancy pants Belizian cacao beans and I "think" they came out right. Ground them up in a whirly bird grinder (not running them through any of my coffee grinders) with the husk on and put about 6 TBs of ground stuff in my aeropress, filled it with water (inverted) and then steeped for 5 minutes. The extraction was almost impossible, so next time I'll use a french press, but the result was only so so. It was more than drinkable with milk and sugar. Delicious in fact with milk and sugar, but I'm groping in the dark here and the info on the web that i've found is contradictory or inconclusive.

Has anyone here done anything with brewed cacao? Any tips?

Never have. How did the roasting go?

-jim

gearchow said:

Never have. How did the roasting go?

-jim

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Jim,

It's hard to tell if I roasted well or not since I've got nothing to compare it to, but over the course of the evening we experimented with a couple of different ways of brewing the cacao and it was a tremendous drink. It's not "hot chocolate"; it's a different beverage altogether but quite satisfying in its own right. The finish on it was amazing and just went on and on for 5 or ten minutes after drinking the beverage.

When I smelled the first brew, there was a scent in it that was clearly recognizable, but which I couldn't name. Over the course of the evening, it finally came to me. The brewed cacao, this was a bean from Belize, not only had the obvious chocolate aromas, but an overwhelming scent that was positively identical to what one gets with a decent sauternes. I've had many sauternes including a couple of vintages of Y'quem and there's no mistaking the aroma. It wasn't subtle and was so strong that I wondered if the same fungus that is critical to making great dessert wines is also present on cacao farms.

If you're really hankering to fall down another rabbit hole, check out the Chocolate Alchemy website and forum which covers these sorts of things in detail. I have been able to resist tumbling down this one so far.

http://www.chocolatealchemy.com/index.php

http://chocolatetalk.proboards.com/

OMG!!! NOOOOOO!!!!! - so screwed...

yakster said:

If you're really hankering to fall down another rabbit hole, check out the Chocolate Alchemy website and forum which covers these sorts of things in detail. I have been able to resist tumbling down this one so far.

http://www.chocolatealchemy.com/index.php

http://chocolatetalk.proboards.com/

Click to expand...

I've been on the chocolate alchemy site and that is where I bought my beans. It's useful, but vague on some specifics.

I guess I only gave it a cursory enough look to determine that the it was more of a commitment to time and equipment than I wanted to make and moved on. Maybe the forums have more info, or possibly other sites. There's a renewed interested with Iced Cacao lately, another coffee home roaster sent me some nibs that I haven't done anything with yet...

http://qz.com/403765/how-to-make-the-summers-coolest-iced-coffee-alternative-cold-brewed-cacao/

yakster said:

I guess I only gave it a cursory enough look to determine that the it was more of a commitment to time and equipment than I wanted to make and moved on. Maybe the forums have more info, or possibly other sites. There's a renewed interested with Iced Cacao lately, another coffee home roaster sent me some nibs that I haven't done anything with yet...

http://qz.com/403765/how-to-make-the-summers-coolest-iced-coffee-alternative-cold-brewed-cacao/

Click to expand...

That was a terrific link. I'm going to try some cold brewed cacao.

Yea brewing cacao will be a whole different beast than coffee. Like that website says, you are after the nibs, not the entire bean. If you roast them yourself, you will probably have to remove the husks.

Traditionally, I think cacao is ground up on a flat stone bench with a heavy stone rolling pin. You could use a mortar and pestle. Cacao is much fattier than coffee, so if you grind a lot you will likely end up with cacao mass, which is actually a precursor to making chocolate.

Traditionally, the cacao is ground up into a very fine paste, added to warm water with some spices (cardamom, cayenne, cinnamon) then frothing the mixture. Its very bitter, but it is the origin of hot chocolate and chocolate as we know it today. Some genius European found out the stuff is actually good if you add sugar and milk!

That cold brewed cacao looks great though! I'm going to have to get my hands on some nibs.