Bean To Bar Chocolate

Bean To Bar, how it is born, what production machines and the dedicated course are. All you need to produce unique chocolate.

BEAN TO BAR DEFINITION
Bean to Bar meaning make chocolate from cocoa beans.

BEAN TO BAR CHOCOLATE
Until the end of the years 50s, hundreds of small chocolate makers throughout Europe used to produce their own chocolate from cocoa beans. Then some of them started to industrialize their production and in this way, they start supplying their own chocolate to other colleagues who just had to melt and temper it to get their products.
Over the years these industrialized producers had become actual corporations. At the end of the last century, there were almost 50 industrial chocolate producers around the world who had the whole market in their hands. With the end of craftsmen, even the manufacturers of artisan machinery disappear red leaving space to small Chinese or Indian producers that modified other purposes machines to process chocolate.

COCOA BEANS TO CHOCOLATE
In 1999, one of the new chocolate pioneers from USA decided to produce its own chocolate, starting from a co-operation with some farmers in Central and South America. His example remained unique until 2008-2011, a three-year term in which the US economic crisis turn many entrepreneurs, resellers and craftsmen, coming from other fields, into chocolate makers, once they realized that chocolate was an exclusive monopoly of corporation companies.
The bean to bar movement was born, it involved the production of chocolate in an artisanal way starting from cocoa beans that are preferably bought from the farmer who, the chocolate maker keeps a stable relationship with.

BEAN TO BAR CHOCOLATE PROCESS
In 2011, TheChocolateLife.com, the largest online community for chocolate makers, that today lists more than 10,000 members, challenged FBM to create artisanal machinery for the production of bean bar chocolate.
FBM accepted the challenge and the adventure started right in Seattle during the North West Chocolate Festival where the manufacturer presented the first Kleego, fast conching machine and the upgraded tempering machine for 2 ingredients chocolate that often has no cocoa butter addition and it is very difficult to temper.
Then chocolate makers asked to the Company to manufacture an innovative small bean-to-bar chocolate machines Rumbo, Winnower, Grindgo and the vertical cooling tunnel for moulds Clima, which completed the FBM bean to bar line:
Cracker/Winnower: winnowing and cracking cocoa beans to get cocoa nibs.
Grindgo: pre-refine nibs to obtain 80/100 microns cocoa liquor.
Rumbo e Rumbo Kid: grinding nibs and sugar to get to 20/25 microns chocolate.
Kleego: fast conching to control the acidity and develop aromas. It can be used as a melter too.
Tempering machines Compatta, Proxima, UnicaMaestria, Jumbo upgraded for b2b: tempering chocolate, vibrating moulds, dosing system, molding, enrobing.

AREA BEAN TO BAR
Today, FBM participates to about 30 Exhibitions in the world and keeps on following the bean to bar movement sharing the present and the future with it. A “production room” called “Area Bean to Bar” has been set up in the company headquarters where everyone can create their own recipe, modify the features of cocoa, develope aromas and playing with flavors trough the FBM machineries. In 2/3 days it is possible to produce an unique and unrepeatable chocolate.
Why start producing the bean to bar? Because chocolate produced by bean to bar chocolate maker is incomparable. Good, sour, acidic or sapid. It’s an unique chocolate and this is the success that no big company can ever create. It’s a chocolate that tells a story. The story of the farmer, of the chocolate maker and the one of the product. A unique story.
Why choose FBM machines? Because the machines that make up the Bean Bar line are modular, scalable, and they optimize processes. The company offers the opportunity to choose between various sizes and costs machines, focusing on the quality granted by the slow food against the massive idea of fast food.

PROGRAM OF BEAN TO BAR CLASS
The class lasts 3 days from 9.30 am to 5.30pm.

-Day 1:
selection of cocoa beans, roasting, cleaning/cracking to have cocoa nibs. Pre-grinding to get 80/100 microns cocoa liquor, grinding nibs.

-Day 2:
grinding sugar, focus on different roasting profiles, conching cocoa liquor.

-Day 3:
tests of different conching stages, tempering, molding, crystallization, wrapping chocolate bars.