Archive for the category: process

Venezuela 2 of 4: Guaniamo, A Piaroan Experience

Guaniamo, A Piaroan Experience.

Photo credit: Diego Mata Martinez

Everyone sprung to action, looking for a tree limb or log big enough to leverage the 4×4 up. Patrick, our host, and Jose Lugo, a farmer from the Ocumare region, moved quickly — donning rubber boots and looking in the river for a log big enough. They found one and hoisted it up. After trying a few leverage points and only falling in the river once, they managed to pry the truck up just enough so the driver could throw it into reverse and skid backwards up the river bank. The second attempt was much more successful and we were soon all back in the 4×4 and bumping along, the sides of our vehicle brushing vegetation on both sides. Suddenly, something loomed in our headlights. It was a man! With a rifle! In the middle of the night. With no light. In the jungle. Was this the part where we were getting kidnapped? But then I heard someone in the back seat whisper, “cazador” (hunter in Spanish) and I breathed a sigh of relief. But as we passed him, he waved and I thought, “you my friend have got cojones.”

We arrived at the village around 11:30 at night and set up our hammocks in a thatched mud building while some bleary eyed Piaroans looked on curiously at all the hubbub of guests. The next day dawned early and I got to breakfast on a guanabana. Little did I know, this would be the last food I would be getting for awhile. Due to some mix ups or things lost in translation, the plan to cook up the supplies and eat together with the villagers was not happening. Thank goodness for protein bars!

The whole village gathered and we trekked into the forest to see the cacao trees. Jose Lugo and Patrick led a workshop on pruning. Like many fruit trees, cacao trees do better when the branches that grow downward or don’t produce much fruit are trimmed off. It also allows more air to circulate, which keeps pests down.

Photo credit: Diego Mata Martinez

The farmers seemed very receptive and tried their hand at pruning some limbs. If they can implement what they learned in the workshop, it will increase their yields and health of the pods.

We trekked back to the village, our bellies grumbling thinking we were heading back to lunch, but we were sadly mistaken. It was time for the presentation part of the workshop.

After lunch, we learned that there were not one, but two communities from the same indigenous group who grew cacao. They used to be all one community and had split due to religious differences several years ago. We came to understand that they were expecting us to visit as well and that they were “just down the road.” I broke the number one rule of traveling: sensible shoes and slipped on some sandals since we were going “just down the road.”

Over an hour later, we were told to get out of the 4×4 and get into a wooden dugout canoe that really didn’t seem to have a back. At the moment we arrived it was piloted by two eight-year-olds, who were soon rescued by their dad who was waiting on our side of the river. We made it across without anyone getting too soaked and then got on the back of a motorbike with a Piaroan teenager to be driven down a bumpy dirt single-track lined path with rather abundant and sharp bushes/low hanging branches. I was about a head taller than my Piaroan driver and he didn’t really take this into account in his driving route, but thankfully, I made it through unscathed.

The second community was overjoyed that we were there and we quickly fell in love with them as they brought forth woven baskets filled with bananas, pineapple, and sugar cane. It was the best banana I have ever eaten.

We were shown to the school building where Patrick and Lugo would lead the fermentation and drying workshop. It was fenced in, like many schools, but there, the school is fenced to be able to lock the children in rather than keep strangers out. Apparently, many of the children would rather run and play in the forest than attend classes (and who can really blame them, they live in tropical paradise!). The workshop went smoothly and again the whole village turned out. Their fermentation rates were much better than the previous village, but they were very interested in how to improve more. We also got to talk to them about how we make chocolate and how we want to make the best chocolate possible from the best beans possible, which is why they, as farmers, are so important.

Jose Lugo looking at the quality of the beans

After the lecture some of us took a swim. I was busy taking photos and when I gestured to the elderly Piaroan man to ask if he was going swimming where the others were, he looked at me horrified. I shrugged it off, but didn’t rush to join my comrades in the beautiful stream. We later learned this “swimming hole” was where the whole town did their dishes.

The sun was getting low, but there was one last surprise. DINNER. Rice, guinea fowl, mortadella, and fried plantains were served up and I was beside myself, I was so happy.

Then, it was back to the first village for one more abbreviated night in the hammocks as we left before dawn to head back to Caracas.

Driving back out over the crazy trail-road made me appreciate these villages’ cacao that much more because they export 40 metric tons per year and to transport it, they take it out one metric ton at a time. That’s 40 trips of about twelve hours each. And all those trips have to happen in the season when it is not flooding, which is only about four months out of the year. It’s pretty amazing that these beans make it to market at all. Juana, a farmer in Sucre who was with us on the trip, told us the first time they tried to sell their beans, she told them to come meet her so they could talk about it and they showed up at her house in Sucre (which is the complete opposite end of the country) with their whole harvest of 40 metric tons.

Thanks to Patrick, he was able to help Juana find a market for these beans, which brought them to us and ultimately, to you. And I appreciate them so much more knowing just how far they came and the wonderful farmers they came from.

Also, a big thank you to Diego, who is a professional photographer, for letting us use his photos!

Posted on May 8th, 2013 by Caitlin | 1 Comment

bean sourcing, process, trip

Scrapeasaurus Rex

There’s no shortage of Wonka-esque molten chocolate flows in the factory: between the four melangers, two temperers, and dozens of pans that ferry the chocolate between them, we have innumerable surfaces with luscious chocolate coatings that we need to scrape clean. My quest for the ideal implement (a treasure trove of innuendo if there ever was one) began when I emptied a melanger for the first time back in July–it’s a messy business at best–and thought, there’s got to be a better way!

We experimented with various spatulas, metal, plastic, and silicone, but a satisfying scrape eluded us until light dawned and I considered the squeegee.

Our silicone savior arrived just in the nick of time for our new molds and the transition to the fill-and-scrape method of tempering, which was one small scrape for a man, but one giant leap for our company. We’re still searching for the perfect squeegee–just an inch longer and a tad sturdier, please!–but for now, these silicone squeegees from OXO are pretty awesome, so we ordered fifteen more. And…if you put them all together in a hotel pan after doing the dishes…you get a Scrapeasaurus Rex…rawr…which is rad!

Because we’re actually dinosaurs.

Posted on February 21st, 2013 by Tod Chubrich | 4 Comments

process

Valentine’s Day Recap

Valentines Day at the factory saw sparks flying (literally). As cute couples held hands over cups of hot chocolate and made clever cards, our oldest melanger decided it needed some love too. Caitlin was emptying a batch of Dominican Republic chocolate when the base of the melanger came loose, pulling wires with it which then sent sparks her way! Thankfully, no one was hurt and the melanger should be up and running on Monday.

Apparently our Big Selmi was jealous so it decided to get in on the action. In the middle of our morning tempering round, the temperer refused to work until it received more love (and a new part that won’t arrive until Monday). Luckily, Greg and Cam came to the rescue. Above, Greg takes a break from fixing Selmi.

Posted on February 18th, 2013 by Cynthia | 0 Comments

machines, process

Bar-to-Bean

By now you’ve heard of bean-to-bar chocolate, but have you heard of bar-to-bean? Our friend Ryan at Cat Trick Films made us an awesome and quirky video for our opening. Check out how chocolate bars are (un-)made:

Posted on January 16th, 2013 by Todd | 6 Comments

friends, process, video

Temperer Distemper Redux

We thought we were done with our temperer problems when we fixed the compressor thermal overload protector near the end of December. Boy were we wrong. The tempering machine, a Selmi Top, worked for all of two and half days before it stopped pumping chocolate out of its top nozzle. At first, we thought maybe there was just a chocolate blockage in some of its internal pipes, so we tried disassembling the machine a bit and cleaning everything out. Unfortunately, that didn’t resolve the problem and we had to start using our smaller, back up tempering machine which really hurt our production.

After verifying a few simple things (no blockage, motor spinning the right direction), we disassembled the machine a bit more and looked more close at the different parts. Here’s the auger (thank you, Archimedes!) that drives the chocolate up the column and, ultimately, out of the nozzle:

auger

We couldn’t see anything obviously wrong with the auger and we were starting to get pretty confused. That’s when we noticed some suspicious marks near the bottom but we weren’t sure what they meant:

broken weld

Fortunately, we’d been talking with Sean at Tomric (the US representative for Selmi) and he was hugely helpful. He forwarded our pictures on to Italy where one of Selmi’s engineer recognized those marks as a broken weld. Apparently, the screw is held to the center shaft by a single weld and that weld had broken, allowing the shaft to spin without turning the screw. We quickly found our way to Kevin at Standard Metal Products and he got the auger repaired quickly. After a thorough cleaning and popping it back into the machine, the chocolate was flowing again:

fixed!

Since we had to use our less efficient machine for a week or two, we’ve fallen behind so now we just need to play a little catch up and make a lot of chocolate!

Posted on January 11th, 2013 by Cam | 1 Comment

machines, process

December Distemper

December and tempering problems always seem to go together and this year is no different. Things had been going really well until last week when our Selmi Top tempering machine started cooling a lot less effectively. It still worked just enough to temper the chocolate but it made everything so much less efficient, just what we needed for the holiday rush. After demonstrating that the compressor would come on but not stay on and that the machine had plenty of liquid coolant, we narrowed the problem down to low refrigerant, a broken compressor, or some control problem (a circuit not supplying power to the compressor when it should). While we wear many hats as chocolate makers, a refrigeration specialist isn’t one of them. After most refrigeration people told us they only worked on specific brands of appliances, we got in touch with Ceasar at KC Refrigeration. He was able to come out the next day and he quickly got to work diagnosing the problem. After about 45 minutes, he found the culprit: a failed compressor thermal overload protector:

Not only was the part cheap ($3!), but he had a spare with him! After swapping the bad one for a new one, the compressor was able to stay on and the machine was fixed! We feel pretty lucky that it wasn’t the compressor (expensive and time consuming to replace) or something wrong with the machine’s circuit board (even more expensive and time consuming to replace). Now we can get back to making more chocolate!

Posted on December 18th, 2012 by Cam | 4 Comments

process

Maya Monster

We’ve had a few nice mentions in the press recently which generated a bunch of orders. Fortunately, Maya, our fulfillment lead, is a monster at packing up orders:

We’re still a bit backlogged but with Maya on our side, that shouldn’t last too long!

Posted on November 28th, 2012 by Cam | 1 Comment

packaging, process, product

First Day Open!

We opened the factory and retail part of our Valencia St location for the first time today! While we had few hiccups, overall, things when great. Everyone we met was wonderful and we had a great time talking to people about chocolate and showing them our space.

Special thanks to Brian for manning the front of the house and taking great care of everyone!

Posted on November 14th, 2012 by Cam | 4 Comments

locations, process

Introducing Rio Caribe: The Trials and Tribulations of a First Time Batch Maker

It’s official, my first batch is complete and making its way into people’s mouths all over the country!

I could not be more excited as it was a long time coming. This road began several months ago when I was in the process of becoming a full-fledged chocolate maker (I had been an apprentice chocolate maker until that point). The last hurdle, after showing that I could complete all the steps of our process correctly and efficiently and passing a “background” chocolate knowledge exam, was to design a batch of my own.

Now I had been making chocolate for several months at this point, but I had followed prescribed processes that had been developed for each of our three origins at the time (Madagascar, Colombia, and Ocumare, Venezuela). So I was given the option of ordering beans from a broker or using some of the beans that were already in storage. I looked around at the beans on the market (and we already had samples many of them), but the pragmatist in me won out and I chose to use some organic Bolivian beans we already had on hand.

I launched into the first round of taste tests, excited at the prospect of my first batch. I sat by the roaster eagerly awaiting the first crack, a common point of reference we use to start taste tests (when the first bean pops away from its husk). The trick is to wait for the first crack (or two) and then push the button on the roaster to start cooling the beans. I pulled up my chair so my face was directly in front of the roaster, straining to hear over our roaster that elusive first crack. I waited and waited and then I heard it, I got so excited I pressed the button starting the cooling cycle and then realized…I hadn’t looked at the time so the whole exercise of finding a reference point was lost. So once I stopped blushing and feeling silly, I quickly prepped another kilo of beans and was at it again. This time, it was a success. To cover my bases I did a roast two minutes longer and another two minutes shorter.

In no time, all three 1 kilo batches were cracked, sorted, winnowed, ground and into the cocoatown (what we now call…mini) melangers. A day later, they were ready to be cooled and tasted. I excitedly brought them out at lunchtime for a group taste test. We all tasted our pieces, prepared to be delighted by our newest taste test and it was AWFUL. Poor Elaine, who was used to taste tests being fairly palatable, had a rather large chunk and I took one look at her face and told her it would be okay if she spit it out. Really, it was terrible.

I kept at it. Trying different roast profiles…a temperature spike at the beginning, a longer slower roast, and my colleagues were great sports and continued to taste the different test batches in all their glory. Nothing was working.

Then, a giant order came in and my immediate production duties shelved batch development. About a month went by and we were running out of Colombian beans, so all of the sudden, getting a new origin online was an urgent matter to avoid a bean crisis. I was not feeling optimistic about the Bolivian beans filling the Colombian void, and then thankfully we had some newly arrived Venezuelan beans from the Rio Caribe region by way of the Franceschi family. I repeated the taste tests process and got excited when I was first cracking the beans and this amazing aroma was released. The first round of taste tests were ALL delicious. It was glorious compared to my previous attempts, and felt like such a luxury to pick the best from the really good.

We all agreed on a roast profile we liked and I got the go ahead to make a thirty kilo batch. The batch tasted great and I was so excited to temper it. But that wasn’t the end of the story, I put the chocolate in our temperamental temperer and it wouldn’t get anywhere close to the correct temperature to come out tempered before seizing (this is when cooled chocolate builds up in the pipes of the machines and simply stops coming out of the nozzle). I tried for about 4 hours and only had 6 streaky bars to show for it. I couldn’t stop thinking, what are we going to do as our supply of Colombian bars quickly dwindled.

I was bailed out by a new motor for the temperer. It arrived just in the nick of time and was strong enough to pump that thick Rio Caribe through the pipes and into the molds at the correct temperature. Thank goodness!

The Rio Caribe is just lovely–full of deep, dark chocolately richness and it just begs to be squished between graham crackers and a roasted marshmallow or smother a perfectly ripe strawberry. It’s been well received at the Noe and Mission community farmers markets as well as around the factory. One of our newest additions to the production crew, Joey, let it slip that this is his favorite origin yet. Not to mention it got the stamp of approval from my Grammy. So I could not be happier to share it will you all and hope you like it just as much as we do!