Forty-Eight Hours in a Stone Bowl: How Craft Chocolate Gets Made

Somewhere in Sofia, a granite wheel turns slowly through a warm paste of ground cacao and sugar. The machine hums through the night, through the next day, and into the following morning. By the time the maker lifts the lid, nearly two days will have passed. The chocolate inside will be smooth enough to melt on the tongue without a trace of grit.

This is bean-to-bar chocolate: a process where a single maker controls every step from raw cacao to finished bar. In Bulgaria, producers like La Fève by Pavel Pavlov and Flow Cacao Roasters have earned international recognition for this work, with Academy of Chocolate awards that put Sofia on the craft chocolate map. But what actually happens between the arrival of a burlap sack of beans and the snap of a finished bar?

Before the Maker: Fermentation Shapes Everything

The flavour of craft chocolate begins thousands of kilometres away, in the days immediately after harvest. According to documented fermentation processes, farmers heap freshly extracted cacao beans, still covered in sweet white pulp, into wooden boxes or piles covered with banana leaves. Over five to seven days, yeasts and bacteria break down the pulp's sugars, generating heat that can reach 50°C. This microbial activity creates the flavour precursors that roasting will later develop into chocolate's characteristic taste.

Without proper fermentation, cacao tastes bitter and astringent. As craft chocolate specialists note, even genetically excellent beans will taste like rotten meat if poorly fermented. The process reduces bitterness, develops fruity and floral notes, and changes the bean's colour from purple to brown. By the time dried beans reach a maker's workshop, their flavour potential is already largely determined.

Roasting: Where Aroma Emerges

Raw fermented beans carry microbiological risks, including potential E. coli and salmonella contamination. According to the Institute of Culinary Education's chocolate lab, roasting serves as the critical kill step that renders beans safe to consume while developing their aroma.

Roasting temperatures and times vary by bean origin and desired flavour profile. Some makers roast at lower temperatures for longer periods to preserve delicate fruit notes; others push higher to develop deeper, more caramelised flavours. The Behmor drum roaster, originally designed for coffee, has become a standard tool for small-scale chocolate makers who need precise temperature control.

Cracking and Winnowing: Separating Treasure From Waste

Roasted beans must be cracked open and their papery husks removed. The remaining pieces, called nibs, contain the cocoa butter and solids that become chocolate. Chocolate Alchemy's production guides note that makers typically lose about 25% of bean weight in husk during winnowing.

Small producers often use modified juicers or purpose-built crackers, followed by winnowing systems that blow away the lighter husk fragments while heavier nibs fall into collection bins. The cleaner the winnow, the smoother the final chocolate.

The Melanger: Grinding and Conching in One

Here is where craft chocolate diverges most dramatically from industrial production. Large manufacturers use separate roll refiners and conching machines. Small makers use a melanger (from the French for to mix): a granite-based device with rotating stone wheels that simultaneously grinds particles and aerates the chocolate mass.

According to melanger production data, dark chocolate typically requires 24 to 48 hours of continuous grinding to achieve particle sizes of 10 to 20 microns, the threshold below which the human tongue cannot detect grittiness. Milk chocolate often needs longer because milk powder particles are harder to break down than sugar.

During this extended grinding, volatile acids evaporate, harsh flavours mellow, and the chocolate develops its final taste profile. Makers taste periodically, checking for astringency and grittiness. As experienced makers discuss, the optimal stopping point varies by bean origin: some Guatemalan beans need 48 hours, while others taste over-conched at 36.

Tempering: The Final Transformation

Finished chocolate must be tempered before moulding. Tempering is the controlled crystallisation of cocoa butter that gives chocolate its glossy surface and characteristic snap when broken. The process involves heating chocolate to melt all crystal forms, cooling it to encourage stable crystal formation, then warming slightly to working temperature.

Фото: Виктор Младенов

If chocolate crumbles instead of snapping cleanly, it has lost its temper from temperature fluctuations during storage. The chocolate itself is not spoiled; the crystal structure simply needs resetting through re-tempering.

What the Process Costs

Bean-to-bar chocolate commands higher prices because the process demands it. A single batch ties up equipment for two days. Specialty cacao costs several times more than commodity beans. The maker's attention spans months, from sourcing decisions to final packaging.

In Sofia, bars from producers like La Fève run around €11 for 80 grams. That price reflects not just ingredients but the 48 hours of grinding, the careful roasting, the sourcing relationships with farmers who ferment properly. When you taste notes of dried plum or citrus in a craft bar, you are tasting decisions made at every stage of a process that began with a machete opening a pod in Ecuador or Tanzania.

The next time you break a piece of craft chocolate and hear that clean snap, consider the journey: fermentation under banana leaves, roasting in a drum, hours of stone wheels turning through the night. The slowness is the point.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is the difference between bean-to-bar and regular chocolate?

A: Bean-to-bar means a single maker controls every production step from raw cacao beans to finished chocolate bar. Industrial chocolate typically separates these stages across multiple facilities, often using pre-made cocoa mass or couverture. Bean-to-bar makers can trace their cacao to specific farms and adjust roasting and grinding to highlight each origin's unique flavours.

Q: How long does it take to make craft chocolate from scratch?

A: The grinding and conching stage alone takes 24 to 48 hours in a melanger. Including roasting, cracking, winnowing, tempering, and moulding, a single batch requires three to four days of active production. This does not count the five to seven days of fermentation and drying that occur at origin before beans ship to the maker.

Q: Why does craft chocolate cost more than supermarket chocolate?

A: Craft chocolate uses specialty cacao that costs significantly more than commodity beans, often paying farmers premium prices for proper fermentation. Production batches are small, equipment runs for days per batch, and makers invest time in sourcing and quality control. A bar priced at €8 to €12 reflects these material and labour costs rather than marketing markup.