How to make chocolate at home - Part 2 Cracking and Winnowing
Cracking cacao beans and separating cacao nibs from the cacao husk
Making chocolate at home - sounds too good to be true? No you can make chocolate at home without fancy equipment! I want to show you how.
Every bean is surrounded by a papery thin shell, called husk. And we need to get ride of this husk. In order to do so, the first step is cracking the bean open. The second step is winnowing, separating the cacao nibs from the cacao husk.
Check out the video about how to crack and winnow cacao beans:
What you need to crack and winnow at home:
Cracking
roasted beans
If you choose to crack by hand you need nothing else.
If you would rather not crack by hand, you additional need:
ziplock bag
rolling pin or hammer
bowl
Winnow
cracked beans
hair dryer
bowls
if possible safety or sun glasses to protect your eyes
How you crack and winnow:
Cracking by hand
Crack every single bean by hand
Or
Cracking with a rolling pin or hammer
Put beans (around 1 lb) into a ziplock bag
Roll over beans with a rolling pin or crack with a hammer (be careful with a hammer, you don’t want to smash them too small, otherwise you’ll loose more nibs than necessary when winnowing)
Winnowing
Go outside (you can also do it in your apartment, but this is going to be wild and messy)
Put all cracked beans into a bowl
Blow into the bowl with your hair dryer and shake the bowl
Repeat until you blow all husk out of the bowl
You don’t have to tidy up your your lawn. The husks will fertilize your grass and flowers.
