Sustainable Craft Chocolate Process: bean-to-bar

The very first step in creating the best sustainable chocolate. Farmers cultivate the cacao pods and once ripe pods are harvested and the seeds taken out. Each pod has 30-60 beans, it takes about 800 beans to make 1 kg of chocolate.

Fermenting is a crucial step in the flavour of our chocolate. This step really creates the distinctive regional characteristics of each cocoa. Fermenting either takes place on the farm or fermenting co-ops. After fermented the beans are dried before being shipped to Canada.

Once the cacao arrives at Flaming Chocolates we hand sort them into different sizes and roast them in small batches. We roast a lot like coffee for light, medium or dark taste profile. The roasting brings out the best qualities of each origin.

Winnowing separates the shell from the nib. After roasting the beans are crushed so that we can remove the shell. The nib is what craft chocolate is made from. 

Once we finally have the nibs we can start to make our craft chocolate! The nibs are ground with sugar for up to 36hrs to make silky smooth chocolate.

After we have smooth chocolate we then carefully cool it and mold it into chocolate bars or other confections. It takes many people to create craft chocolate perfection.