How is chocolate made?

The following steps are those taken by a chocolate manufacturer to process cocoa from a bean into chocolate.

Process Description

Sorting The beans are cleaned and separated by country of origin.
Roasting The beans are heated in 215 to 260 degrees C air for 15-20 minutes.
Shelling (Winnowing) The husks are removed, leaving the "nibs"... the meat of the cocoa bean.
Grinding A machine grinds the beans making them warm enough to melt the cocoa butter, the liquid is called chocolate liquor.
Extracting Some of the cocolate liquor is pressed to take away the cocoa butter, leaving dry cocoa powder.
Mixing Condensed milk, sugar and some cocoa butter are added tot he chocolate liquor and completely combined.
Refining Steel rollers mooth out the tiny particles of cocoa, milk and sugar.
Conching The chocolate is smoothed even more as additional cocoa butter is added to mixing machines. Originally these machines resembled seashells.
Tempering The smoothed chocolate is cooled from about 62 degrees C to about 27C, and is ready to be molded into candy shapes.


Source of information