Meadowlands Chocolate Company

1) Raw nibs from Belize, ready for roasting. The smell is acidic, earthy, wonderful.

2) After roasting (the cocoa smelled like brownies baking), we push the nibs through a Champion Juicer. This has a shearing effect, which forces the cocoa butter out of the bean under pressure. It is a thick, grainy paste at this point.

 3) Here is the cocoa continuing its journey in the Premier Grinder. Refining and conching the chocolate with a granite stone grinder takes about 30 hours for a batch this size (the larger the batch, the longer the conching and refining time). We'll add the sugar when the micron level is at about 55. When the microns are about 20  - sometime tomorrow - we'll back off the stones so it can conch further without grinding the particles any smaller. (This warm, spinning, organic, glorious mass smells incredible!)

4) Before adding sugar. 

5)After adding cane sugar.

6) Everything is coming together. A few hours to go.