Making My Own Chocolate: To Conche or Not to Conche

By Clay Gordon | 3 years ago | 1 min read

ChocolateLife member Skip in Missouri asks:

Question

“If I am just adding sweetener, lecithin, vanilla, and milk powder to a commercially made unsweetened chocolate to make my own flavor of chocolate, should I conch the mixture any further?”

My Response

Skip:

Like most things in chocolate, the answer is, “I depends.” I know, that’s not helpful. Is “Maybe?” any better?

I am guessing that you are mixing all the ingredients together in some sort of refiner – a melanger or a ball mill or universal. (Only the universal is designed to actually conche as well as refine.)

If any case, you only need an additional conching phase if you feel that either the texture or the taste needs additional work. For example, you might have an acidic cocoa mass and the way to remove the acidity would be through conching, which could more easily be done in a melanger or a universal as most ball mills have no built-in means for efficient conching.

There is more to this of course (as I said, “I depends”), but please let us know if there’s something I missed in the comments below.