Why dutched cocoa is different from natural cocoa
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- Опубликовано: 4 дек 2022
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2015 paper on cocoa alkalization by Arlen Moser of Blommer Chocolate Company: www.blommer.com/_documents/Bl...
My old video on why (some) people first started cooking with lye: • Why people cook with c... 
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I loved the part when Adam said “it’s dutching time” and dutched all over the cocoa
Undutch my cocoa immediately
If Adam somehow stumbles upon this comment and doesn’t understand it I want him to know that it’s not his fault at all
I love the part when Adam said "It's Ragusin' time" and Ragusea'd all over RUclips.
@@Crowbars2 I loved the part where he said “It’s cookin time” and cooked all over the place.
@@Crowbars2 I loved the part when he said "Let's eat this thing" and wait, wrong channel.
"I think I Dutched it a bit too hard"
America's exit from the World Cup explained.
😂😂💀
too soon 😔
Yeah, we really got you there. Wilhelmus van Nassaue ben ik van Duitsen bloed, Den Vaderland getrouwe ben ik tot in den doet... (dutch nat. anthem).
Argentina still won 🤭
Seeing nonchemists nonchalantly tossing massive quantities of sodium hydroxide in water never gets old. For anyone replicating this, that process releases a lot of heat. Be careful to not add too much too quickly and cause it to start boiling and spraying hot caustic water around.
Exactly. Caustic burns are no joke.
As a former hobby soap maker, my eyebrows went straight up when he dumped that in and almost sloshed it over the edges while stirring. Respect the sodium hydroxide! And wear gloves! Folks at home should also know to never ever EVER stir water INTO sodium hydroxide, rather than stirring the sodium hydroxide into water.
Let alone dumping it down a residential drain :(
Yeah I cringed pretty hard. Careful Adam!!
And don't add aluminum foil!
Apparently natural cocoa is the way the original red velvet cake was made without food colouring. The red colour came from a chemical reaction of cocoa and acid in buttermilk/vinegar. It wasn't red red like we're used to now, more like a rusty red but still. Fascinating!
Interesting.
I loved when Adam drank a caustic solution of Dutched chocolate soap
The pH of the liquid he drank is entirely safe; people need to learn their pH-values, lol
Hey! brazilian viewer here, u can make tea out of those cocoa shells. It smells and tastes exacty like a very sweet hot chocolate. Usually, I drink it with some frothed milk, really recomend it
Well i guess Adam now has a new video idea!
How do you get the clay out?
@@Doomroar the best thing is that its a really tasty low calorie beverage
@@aragusea i dont know about the US, but here in brazil u can buy just the shells. Its really really cheap, i bought a 1 Kg package for 40 reais (about 8 usd dollars)
@@aragusea my guess is... you prob don't haha
Hi Adam! Posting this again so more people can see it. I am an undergrad researcher who regularly works with strong bases in a lab. Some words of advice to keep other viewers safe from chemical burns:
1. As many people have said, remember to slowly add the base TO the water, do not add it the other way around. Base dissolution is a very exothermic process and can cause the solution to rapidly boil and the mixing vessel to explode. If the base is sitting at the bottom of the flask, then water is added and it rapidly heats at the bottom, this can cause the bottom of the bowl to shatter, spilling caustic solution on the counter and possibly you. Adam used an open, heat safe bowl in the video, and did indeed add the base to the water.
2. Always make sure to read the safety data sheet of any hazardous chemical you will be handling (like sodium hydroxide). Ensure that you know what to do in the event of skin or eye contact (in this case rinse under cool water for at least 15 minutes), and make sure the compound isn't a respiratory hazard. As another commenter mentioned, eye protection like goggles or safety glasses would be prudent when handling a potential splash hazard like this. I appreciate that Adam showed the skull and crossbones on the container, and mentioned that it was dangerous, but I do think that safety glasses would have been slightly better than his prescription lenses (not sure if he was or wasn't wearing additional eye protection since I didn't see his face while he mixed the NaOH solution).
3. In the same realm, if you will be wearing gloves to protect yourself, make sure they are base-compatible so your gloves won't break down in solution, potentially burning your hands and leeching plasticizers into your food. Always inspect gloves before use to ensure they are not worn or punctured. If you suspect that your gloves have been compromised, change them immediately and wash your hands. It is better to waste a pair of gloves than to burn your skin. Note, if you have diabetes or another disease that limits the sensitivity of your hands/fingertips, I would strongly advise against handling strong bases, since you may not be able to feel the base eating through your skin. Again, in the video, though Adam didn't show the type of gloves he was using, I am sure he did his research beforehand.
3. Absolutely DO NOT drink any very basic solution, especially if you are unsure of the pH. "Solutions
with pH values of 12.5 or greater have been reported to cause significant tissue damage including
esophageal ulceration when consumed." Bases are very good at breaking down organic compounds, that includes you. If you think you may have ingested a strong base, immediately call 911 or poison control for help. I perhaps would not have drunk the DIY dutched hot chocolate because I have not so fond memories of turning my skin into soap on accident when I used compromised gloves, but Adam is perfectly capable of weighing the risks of trying his own creations.
4. PLEASE make sure you know how to properly clean up spills and dispose of waste. Do NOT just pour the solution down the drain. If you spill strong base, slowly add a weak acid like vinegar or citric acid until bubbles stop forming, this will neutralize the base and make it safe to handle. If you feel uncomfortable handling a spill, call 911 for help. To dispose of NaOH solution (if you do not know what the pH is and it is potentially stronger than you realize), neutralize it using weak acid until bubbles stop forming. At this point, you can slowly pour the neutralized solution down the drain while you run large quantities of plain water alongside it. It looks like Adam poured the solution down the drain with plenty of water, and since he knew the solution pH wasn't terribly high, he should be perfectly fine.
Please be safe handling chemicals people :). This was in no way an attack on Adam, just a way to educate people who may not be familiar with base handling procedures. I edited this to add in examples of Adam following proper handling procedures. I also had to remove my sources because RUclips flags comments with links as spam and removes them. If you have a correction/would like a source, please let me know!
I think he addresses most of this in a reply to @marathon665.
I'll go ahead and reply here, though I've done so elsewhere. I mixed the base directly into the water (as you say) in a heat-safe pyrex bowl. You can see me measuring out the amount - I knew the pH of the solution I was mixing. It's the water/lye proportion for pretzel making given on the bottle, which I've done at home before. German home bakers do this all the time. I knew the solution was dangerous, which is why I kept it at arms length and put on the appropriate gloves for when I handled it. I poured it down it down my drain with the faucet running to dilute it, which is a standard disposal procedure, and it's what you're doing when you run drain cleaner down your sink. I did not go into detail on these steps in my video because it did not want my steps to be reproducible. I gave no measurements because this is not a recipe - I am not encouraging anyone to do this themselves. I said in the video that a base this strong is very dangerous, and I very deliberately showed a close-up of the skull and cross bones on the bottle to scare everyone. I appreciate Beth and other lab folks for sharing safety tips on how they could work with these chemicals themselves. However, I also want to communicate why I did what I did, and now I have.
Ain't no hoity-toity know-it-all "scientist" gonna tell ME what I can and can't drink! IF I WANNA DRINK BLEACH THAT'S MY GOD-GIVEN RIGHT AS AN AMERICAN!!
@@aragusea your diplomacy is only outmatched by your skills in the kitchen. Bravo!
I cried out, "Holy cow that's a lot of lye!" haha. Probably could have used a tenth that amount. Dropping it in all at once like that scared me a bit too!
There's only natural cocoa where I am. Recipes always say "Dutch processed" and I never knew the difference; just naively used what I have and it has always tasted really good.
It's not always easy to find, even in supermarkets. I have a hard time. Usually have to order it off the Internet.
look for alkalized cocoa, it's a more common name than dutch cocoa outside of the english-speaking world and in some parts of it
"America's Test Kitchen" did a test using normal cocoa when recipes called for dutched/alkalized cocoa. The flavor was fine, just not exactly the flavor the authors of the recipe wanted. So if you can't find it, just use regular, it will still taste good.
Yeah the main difference is that Dutch cocoa tastes like Oreos and natural cocoa tastes like... well, cocoa.
@@huaili3606 yeah, Red Velvet Cake with regular cocoa is still pretty good, but definitely tastes a lot more like a regular chocolate cake.
I loved when adam said "it's natural time" and Naturaled all over the cocoa
cocoa fears Adam's big naturals
And here I thought Dutched cocoa was just put in a room where someone said "lekker" over and over.
By any chance have you seen NileBlue's video where he makes chocolate from scratch? It was a very enjoyable watch, and very educational too
Weird though that Adam managed to get a device to properly grind the cocoa while Nile used the crappy nutri bullet to semi blend it
lekker patat
@@UloPe Nile is a great chemist, but he's extremely clumsy when it comes to using tools properly.
Funny that "lekker" didn't really change from Dutch to Afrikaans. I guess lekker is lekker is lekker.
Aw man Nile Blue just covered this raw-beans-to-chocolate process about a month ago -- HUGE missed opportunity for a sciencey crossover episode! :D
In the Philippines, we have cocoa tablets called tableya. The makers grind the roasted beans, then compact them into little pucks. We use them for making tsokolate, which is basically a chocolate drink (I bet it tastes similar to what Adam made). And also for our champorado, a chocolatey porridge. 😊
So, I wanna give a little more info and corrections regarding Cacao's original use in the Americas, because Adam went light on details & mostly focused on the European side of things (This happened when Turkey, Maize/Corn, Chillis, Tomatoes, etc have come up in videos too: this is probably less Adam's fault and more the general/culinary history sources he's working with, though I do wish he tried to include more), Firstly, terminology: In an archeology and anthropology context, there's usually a distinction made between "Mesoamerica" and "Central America": Mesoamerica is the region with big, urban civilizations, formal state governments, etc in the bottom half or so of Mexico, all of Guatemala and parts of Belize, and then increasingly smaller bits of Honduras, El Salvador, etc; wheras Central America usually refers to the societies geographically below Mesoamerican ones (though there is overlap), which had towns, agriculture, and semi-complex governments, but not huge urban cities and bureaucratic law the same way Mesoamerica did.
Cacao's domestication actually did NOT take place in Mesoamerica or Central America, but rather down in South America, in Ecuador: This is the result of a few studies published in 2018, which found traces of Cacao in ceramics at Santa Ana-La Florida in Ecuador, alongside genetics research which pinned down the Criollo variety as the first domesticated form of Cacao which is likewise found first in Ecuador. (South America itself, too, had highly developed urban civilizations in Peru and bits of adjacent countries; and thensome nomadic ones and town building semi-complex cultures in the areas around that: We now know that even the Amazon rainforest had agricultural societies that built large irrigation networks and large towns, for example). Chocolate use then spread up through Central America and into Mesoamerica, where it's most known for today (and from Mesoamerica, it was traded further north, past Northern Mexico and it's Aridoamerican nomadic societies and with the town building agricultural ones of Oasiamerica like the Pueblo, Hohokam, Salado, etc in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, etc).
In Mesoamerica, it was used by pretty much every major civilization: The Olmec had it, who were one of Mesoamerica's first civilizations around 1400-600BC, it's use by the Maya and Aztec is extensive, it shows up in surviving books from the Mixtec civilization which shows it's use by Mixtec and Zapotec rulers and nobles, there's ceramic depictions of it on vessels at Teotihuacan, etc. However, widespread USE does not mean widespread availability: Cacao requires pretty tropical growing conditions, and as such a lot of the civilizations in the more temperate to arid hills and valleys in Central Mexico, Oaxaca, etc often were not able to grow it themselves. A good example of this is how the very furthest out the Aztec Empire did conquests was at Xoconochco / Soconusco, an area in Chiapas around 800 kilometers away from the core of the Aztec empire, which they specifically secured as a Cacao production area, despite the fact that Cacao was a regular economic resource they demanded as taxes from other conquered and vassal provinces. Therefore, Cacao's wide use within Mesoamerica is less a credit to extensive and widespread cultivation, but how robust and extensive trade networks were. (as was the fact that it, Macaws, rubber balls, etc were traded by the Maya 2000+ kilometers to Oasisamerica)
My area of interest is primarily Mesoamerican urbanism/city planning, architecture, water management systems, and general society and politics, so admittedly in depth information on Cacao's cultural symbolism and culinary use isn't something I have a ton of information about off the top of my head: But I know that the Maize god in Classic Maya religion had connections to Cacao as well, with trees being a symbol of rebirth and regeneration often associated with the tombs of rulers or dead mythical hero's such as in the Popol Vuh, where such trees sometimes are depicted personified as the Maize god and with Cacao fruit. Cosmic World Trees are also a big deal in Maya cosmology, where they are often tied to Crocodiles and we have many depictions of Crocodillian cacao trees, which in turn also are tied to the Maize god. I'm not aware of any connections between Maize deities in Central mexico to Cacao, but Xipe Totec, the Aztec god of Rebirth and regeneration, absolutely had connections to maize, where the husking of maize was likened to a rebirth and was tied to sacrifices of skin flaying, mirroring the process (In general, Mesoamerican creation myths often involve people being made from ground maize or magic bones representing corn meal mixed with divine blood). I'm actually ironically NOT too aware of Cacao's religious symbolism to the Aztec, despite knowing more about them generally.
Also, while Cacao and chocolate beverages were absolutely something associated with nobility, rulers, etc, where Classic Maya art and Cacao drinking vessels depict the beverage being served at royal feasts and meetings between royals and diplomats, and where textual sources on the society and culture of the Mexica of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan insist that the beverage was limited and not available to commoners, the reality is more complicated: We know from analysis of various ceramic vessels that Maya commoners would have had access to and consumed chocolate as well, and at Yautepec, a Aztec ("Aztec" can refer to the Mexica specifically, the broader Nahua civilization they come from, or the "Aztec Empire", which included both Nahua and non Nahua states) city of moderate size located a bit outside the political core of the empire, we see that commoners had access to chocolate too: This is perhaps not that suprising, though, considering that the Mexica are pretty widely known to be sort of classist prudes. Even in Tenochtitlan, however, we know that Cacao beans were a common sort of "pocket change": Men, women, and childern at a market would carry some beans with them and use it as an exchange unit in small quantities, in addition to more valuable, larger bartering units like standardized bartering textiles (quachtli, depending on the grade could be worth anywhere from 5 to 100 beans), copper/bronze axe-monies, etc: A turkey or hare was worth 100 beans, while an egg, a tomatoe, chilli, cactus fruit, advocado, tamale, etc were variously worth 1 to 5 beans. We even know of merchants mixing in counterfeit beans into their stock!
I might add onto this more later, but also, when Adam showed Cortes meeting Moctezuma II, it's worth noting that that document is the Lienzo De Tlaxcala: This was made by Tlaxcalteca artists as documentation to prove to the Spanish their loyalty and contributions in Spanish campaigns in the Americas, Tlaxcala being a Nahua kingdom in Mesoamerica headed by a city-state of the same name (which was actually a republic with a senate, too) which were one of Cortes's earliest major allies. This is important, because Moctezuma II and his officials are depicted in Tlaxcalteca ornamentation rather then Mexica regalia: Both the Mexica and Tlaxcalteca were Nahua, so the tilmatli capes and some other things would have been pretty similar, but the red and white headbands for examples are specifically emblematic of Tlaxcala: Moctezuma II probably would have been wearing a blue geometric patterned Tilmatli cloak, and a turquiose mosiac diadem, which was the Nahua version of a crown for most cities, including Tenochtitlan.
For Adam's reference, some sources he may want to check out that touch on Chocolate and Mesoamerican cuiusine:
- Sacred Consumption: Food and Ritual in Aztec Art and Culture
- Chocolate in Mesoamerica A Cultural History of Cacao
- America's First Cuisines (though it's description of the conquest and Aztec politics/society is a bit dated)
- Her Cup for Sweet Cacao: Food in Ancient Maya Society
- The True History of Chocolate (Though everything it says about the Toltecs is very outdated)
- Tasting Empire: Chocolate and the European Internalization of Mesoamerican Aesthetics
- Florentine Codex
- An Aztec Herbal: The Classic Codex of 1552
- 2021 Maya at the Playa conferences
I appreciate the added context and will look into some of those sources if and when chocolate history comes up again here. I will say, given that this is a video about a European chocolate processing method invented by Europeans to make the chocolate they acquired from the Aztecs more palatable to them, I think it was quite natural to discuss it from a European point of view.
@@aragusea I getcha! I hope my comment didn't come off as overly critical or anything, or that I thought this was information you "had" to include: I definitely do think there are times you could delve into the precolumbian social and cultural context of some ingredients and dishes more then you do considering some of the tangents you go on about European and Asian history in your videos, but in this case I get why it wasn't so much the focus and it was very much on the Dutch process... I mostly just wanted to share cool information for other viewers! I should also note to be fair that the sources I suggest here are less specifically on Chocolate (the second one aside) and more on Mesoamerican cuisine and horticulture in general: I think "An Aztec Herbal" in particular will be really useful if you ever do a video on the Columbian Exchange, if you want to mention how that process wasn't just the adapotion of crops but also botanical science and pharmaceutica from Aztec botanical documents. Also, in the event you can't find recordings of the 2021 Maya at the Playa conferences, I have notes I can send I took from them!
this might legit be the longest non spam comment ive ever seen
@@TheErikjsm It's definitely the longest one I've read and found interesting the whole way through.
@@TheErikjsm LOL
This is amazing, Adam. My jaw dropped in realization when you said that the lye process also alkalized the cocoa FATS. I was like, "holy shit, soap!" just as you said it.
Watching Adam has inspired me to cook better meals for myself lately. I'd fallen into a rut where food was either comfort junk or just a chore I had to take care of so as not to feel hungry.
Now I'm enjoying the process of cooking again as well as the far more enjoyable and healthy meals.
Thanks, Adam!
"People mainly eat seeds" is one of the best things you've ever said
I'm a chocolate maker and have written books on the topic. Never heard that about clay on the beans before, wondering where you got that information? Also, there really isn't any need for Dutched cocoa if you want quality. It's mainly used because it can make lower quality cocoa taste more chocolatey and aids in mass production. Like so much of the mass produced food industry, it's more about money and profits than flavour or quality.
wikipedia
@@Cris00900340 Not always the most accurate source!
The wikipedia article doesn't have a source listed, but I found a possible source via googling a bit. "Dictionary of the English/Creole of Trinidad & Tobago: On Historical Principles" - Page 217 (via google books).
Quote:
"Sprinkle clay [...], on cocoa beans while dancing on them to help in polishing. The clay is used to protect the shell and assist in drying. It is now banned in most countries because of the added weight of the clay"
I don’t get how you can write entire books on the topic and work in the actual industry and still come away saying that dutched cocoa is lower quality without any sort of caveats in there for the vast market of extremely high quality and well produced Dutch process cocoas out there. It feels like your opinion is informed by some bogus appeal to nature, because the two products have entirely different flavor profiles and there are completely valid reasons why a professional or home baker would choose to use Dutch process over natural cocoa that aren’t cynical cost cutting measures. Natural cocoa is acidic, and due to there not being any treatments done to it, that acidity is highly variable between producers and even between batches from the same producer. If I want a reliable chocolate cake recipe, I’m gonna look for one that uses Dutch process cocoa because the standardized pH removes an uncontrollable variable. In recipes where pH is less important, it comes down to what kind of chocolate flavor I’m aiming for. If I want something rich and earthy I’m gonna grab my Dutch process cocoa powder. If I want something bright and acidic then I’ll go for my natural cocoa. The two are not interchangeable, and one is not inherently higher quality than the other
@@SkaveRat Oh good catch! I know polishing was something traditionally done in the Caribbean a hundred years ago, but hadn't heard of clay being involved. Basically they put the beans in a giant cauldron and dance on them with bare feet. A fun thing to see them re-enact, but of no use at all in any modern production.
Adam I must say you are incredible good at doing research! Keep going
It's worth mentioning that depending on what country you're in, there might not be a distinction made between natural and Dutched cocoa. Here in the UK the name of both is the same (just 'cocoa powder'), but if you look at the ingredients and see 'Acidity regulator', usually potassium carbonate, that'll be your Dutched cocoa.
I actually like the bitterness of dark chocolate
to an extent, it's gotta have at least a little bit of sugar , straight raw is too much lol
great video adam, as an argentinian myself, it is nice to hear about the dutch in a non-football context, at least until friday
I’m wondering if Adam has noticed how specialty chocolate bars often have the fruity “ tropical skittles” flavor.
As Adam is a fan of acidic, lighter-roasted, natural process coffee, I think he might enjoy a lot of specialty chocolates
THAT WAS A BEAUTIFUL VIDEO ABOUT DUTCH PROCESSING. ALL MY DOUBTS CLEARED IN A FLASH!THANK YOU.
When it comes to food and learning, your channel is the best!
Never knew that we the Dutch folk had such a big part in modern Chocolate
Yeah we're pretty cool
I lived in Zaandam for a while. This town is famous for its (Dutch) chocolate processing. Thank god they moved most of the factories outside the center of town, because they smell so bad you'll lose you taste for chocolate 😀
Yeah, but the reason why isn’t exactly something to be proud of
@@DoozyyTV Colonialism is not cool.
@@thiccityd9773 we (avarage lower class to higher middle class dutchman) didnt have anything to do with the sl*very, it were just the voc captains who were involved with that part of our history. If the people in our classes would have tried to protest against it most of us would probbably not have excisted
Hey Adam, I've seen several videos of people trying to recreate Aztec/Mesoamerican hot chocolate, and one element which they couldn't recreate is the massive frothy head of foam that the Spanish wrote about Aztec hot chocolate having. In codex images it's depicted as practically spilling out of the cups. The Aztecs would apparently generate all this foam by pouring their hot chocolate between two jugs to aerate it and beating the bejesus out of it with special whisks. I noticed your primitive natural hot chocolate looked noticeably more oily than those other people's attempts I mentioned, and I'm wondering if that might make a difference in making the foam.
They used a molinillo which is what made it frothy and foamy
@@strawberryshortgirl2637 As far as historians can tell the Molinillo is a later Spanish invention based on earlier Aztec chocolate beaters.
@Faith kate I am wanted in several countries for numerous human rights violations and warcrimes.
@@strawberryshortgirl2637 The Molinillo was created by Spaniards after finding out about the chocolate drink.
@@justanotherarmchairgeneral4240 I know, we’re after you however. Running is no use.
"People mainly eat seeds" is such a funny thing to hear and it's even funnier that it's true
Thank you for going through this length and sharing it with us, on how to make chocolate at home effectively.
I have always been curious.
Here I am attempting to study for a geology exam. Now I am fully enthralled in a video about coco.
right there with ya, I've got a history paper to finsh- i'd better get to it!
My Holiday Choco-vanilla Stout has coco nibs. Adding them to the fermenter adds lots of rich chocolate flavor. I think the alcohol pulls the flavor/oils out.
I really cant express enough how much I appreciate you and your content
seriously scratches the itch left by Good Eats and food science. love your stuff man.
Now I'm curious about ruby chocolate. Supposedly, it involves a particular variety of cacao that is mildly reddish to begin with and instead of alkaline treatment, they do a citric acid treatment causing a shift towards a reddish color. The end product they sell as ruby chocolate is otherwise still milk chocolate (AFAIK, there is no "dark ruby chocolate" product, though I'd love to know if such a thing exists).
That said, that's the limit of what Callebaut was willing to share with the public. Anything further than that is speculation.
Now I await to see if Adam in his NileRed parody mode could create anything from that information.
Ahh, I've had a ruby chocolate bar before. It was quiet bad. It tasted mostly like white "chocolate". I'm guessing they used mostly white chocolate, and just a bit of the red cocoa. I do recall it having kind of a fruity taste, if that means anything.
That Audible sponsor ad and the ending of the video has a lot of "Adam Ragusea out of context" potential 😂👌 it's almost like Mr. Ragusea knows his potential "memeability" 😉👍
Was just thinking the other day that I wanted to make something with some dutch cocoa. Never really thought about what actually made it different from regular cocoa so this was neat to learn
The process of removing the husks from wheat and rice (and cocoa) is called threshing. The thresh was usually either waste, or it was used as insulation, typically to cover earthen floors. They needed some sort of small barrier in the doorway to hold the thresh in. This is where we get the term “threshold”
Hi Adam, this was very interesting, but I feel like I only watched half a video. I would have also liked to know how each is used industrially today and why the home cook would choose one over another in baking or cooking. Is it only flavor preference, or do the different pHs react differently in baked goods (like using baking powder vs. baking soda) You also noted that the roasted dutched cocoa smelled like oreos.... is that what is used in oreos? Could we do oreos at home (or sans the cream filling, maybe an oreo pie crust?) Anyway, thanks for showing how the chocolate-making process could actually be done at home. I love seeing what I view as huge industrial processes demystified and brought down in scale.
Cacao nibs can be absolutely delicious though! The problem is that a lot of the ones sold in grocery stores aren't super high quality, so you don't get the complex flavors you get with bean to bar cacao nibs, just roasted + bitter notes. I've had some taste like hazelnuts, others like dried cherries, others like a savory version of the chocolate they're made into with all the notes you could imagine. (And since you're working with cacao yourself I'd be curious where you're sourcing from, since you should be able to buy through someone like Chocolate Alchemy and get similar results at home with experimentation?) I hope you can try some, like from Marou or Castronovo, and see what the difference is like!
Edit: Also the husks can be saved and made into cacao hull tea, and that's also absolutely delicious! Intrigue Chocolate sells a great cacao hull tea if you're new to it!
Yeah I’ve never even heard of nibs being considered gross. They’re like tiny slightly chocolaty nuts, what’s not to love about that? (Assuming one likes nuts)
@@randomjunkohyeah1 I do get it though? So I've been testing out nibs for review for years (for the record I've done chocolate judging before), and a lot of lower quality grade nibs are both incredibly hard and highly astringent, so they might work in baked goods as a savory chocolate note but aren't nearly as pleasant on their own. Properly roasted high quality nibs are easier to eat, less astringent, and taste great, but you then have to know where to find them. So I'm so glad you like them! Team Nibs! Where do you get your nibs from?
Yeah I love cacao nibs. I like to drink un-alkalized cacao in hot chocolate since it has a lot of theobromine and phenethylamine, so it's a less jittery and more psychoactive substitute to coffee (even if it has slight quantities of caffeine in it, but not as much as coffee or tea). I think the alkalinization removes a lot of those compounds, so you're really only left with a little theobromine. I highly recommend getting fair trade un-alkalized cocoa imported from Peru or Ecuador, since it's much higher quality than stuff you get from the store.
@@joshuaallgood7030 That's awesome! What makers do you go through then? And actually bean to bar or craft cacao is generally the highest quality even over fair trade! And most fair trade makers go through larger cooperatives, while direct trade/bean to bar through farms and smaller cooperatives and sometimes single farms, so the notes can be more distinct, like even the Ucayali River and Chuncho origins in Peru can have such different notes. It's so cool! And you can even buy direct from some cooperatives now, like with Meridian Cacao and Uncommon Cacao! And Meridian sells direct from the farms cocoa powder! (If you're new to bean to bar I'd absolutely check them both out, especially Uncommon's transparency reports! It's a great way to learn why direct or transparent trade is a great option in addition to fair trade.)
@@DessertGeek I just got this new batch from Costco, and it’s high quality. Even when you by unprocessed cacao, the quality can vary wildly. I haven’t purchased it from direct trade, but buying cacao pods and fermenting and roasting my own nibs is something that I want to do. Any recommendations on websites where I can order such?
swedish chef here. ur channel rocks my world.
I got to say Adam has the best ad transitions on RUclips 😆
This makes me wonder if coffee can be alkalised and what sort of flavours that would produce in the coffee
Because like cocoa, coffee is a bitter bean that is (sometimes) fermented and then roasted to make a bitter drink that is acidic.
This doesn’t seem like it’s something that’s been tried before- Google scholar turns up no results.
So this could either be as revolutionary as Dutch cocoa or it could be really really bad.
Coffee beans can be alkalized but it makes the aroma worse, not better. Don't know why but since google scholar didn't help look into forums about making coffee infused soap for a lot of shared anecdotes and theories behind the reaction between coffee and strong bases.
I can share my personal experience. I wanted to make some exfoliating coffee ground soap bars. Made the soap with coconut oil, sodium hydroxide and a tiny bit of citric acid as a softener. Once the soap was at a nice paste consistency I mixed in the coffee grounds. The smell wasn't great. Not bad but it went from pleasant coffee to sort of burnt, wet cardboardy smell. Some of the original coffee smell was still there but very subdued and overpowered by a neutral at best smell.
I had some old Sodium bicarbonate laying around at home, on the packaging it said among cleaning, to use it to improve the taste of the coffee. I added a small knife tip out of curiosity and was immediately repulsed by the taste. So I wouldn't recommend it and it doesn't really improve the taste.
As a pharmacy student who studied the extraction of alkaloids.
Caffeine is an alkaloid, and as such, it's only soluble in water if there is also acid in solution. If you alkalized coffee, you would get rid of the acid, and as such, caffeine would not be soluble, and you would get a coffee drink with no caffeine.
I may be wrong about this stuff.
@@hugomlpaixaoyou ARE wrong. Once the caffeine gets extracted by water, the removal of acid will not break apart the molecules of caffeine in the drink.
Same happens with chocolate: Dutch processed chocolate does not have significantly lower levels of Xanthines (theobromine, caffeine) than conventional chocolate.
@@OtavioFesoares no, but from what I get, the caffeine won't get extracted without an acid. Like sure, the coffee grounds will have the caffeine, but you won't have caffeine in your drink
So much history, science and effort just to make some seeds taste nice.
We are one peculiar species indeed.
As a non-American who has only ever heard of Dutch process cocoa through American cooking videos, this is really enlightening - especially the Oreo example, as it finally clarifies why I don't really think Oreos taste like chocolate, but something kinda similar! Fascinating stuff! Kind of makes me want to alkalize some cocoa powder to see how it turns out.
Really good video! Alot of info and context. Great work
I got curious so I added some baking soda to cocoa drink that I sometimes (rarely) make with just water, cocoa powder and sugar. I feel like it did smooth out the taste. Of course gotta be careful not to get too much base in your stomach to impact your stomach acid.
I make hot cocoa with both varieties. Dutched is probably better for hot cocoa and has that classic chocolate flavor but the natural is fruitier and more complex. I like to do a cinnamon or cassia stick with the natural or sometimes a little cayenne. With the dutched I won’t add anything, maybe some mints leaves. For baking a lot of recipes are written to use natural but it usually doesn’t come out in the finished product, I guess because the other ingredients and the baking are another way of processing it.
Those additives? (cinnamon stick, whatnot) Sir, you disgust me! 😜😁 (but really... yuk!)
@@theobolt250 All of those are tastes that work well with chocolate so I don't know what your problem is.
@@theobolt250 Good thing I didn’t mention the vanilla ;). A splash of rum or bourbon is also nice.
@@theobolt250 White People Moment
Blommer Chocolate (the paper you mentioned near the end) is here in Chicago located basically downtown. When I worked 2nd shift downtown in the beforetimes, I'd get off work at 11pm and on some nights you could smell an intense cocoa aroma blocks and blocks away from the factory. Probably throughout most of downtown. I loved it.
Thank you! I've been wondering why the difference for so long!
Until about three years ago I'd never even heard of the distinction between these two processes. I wanted a recipe for red velvet cake that didn't include either food coloring or beet juice, because my cousin is allergic to red dye and my dad can't stand beets, and I discovered a traditional style recipe using natural cocoa and buttermilk. I never ended up making it myself because to this day we've never found natural cocoa in the local grocery stores, but I did some digging into what that meant, so I came into this with at least some understanding.
Hershey's is a natural cocoa. If it doesn't say Dutch/ed, you can assume it's natural
@@oxoelfoxo And yet, despite numerous attempts, it doesn't respond the way natural cocoa should to acid, so I'm forced to assume that Dutch processed is just considered the default here and requires no labeling.
@@Great_Olaf5 looks like it. you might have to source online
Back in the 1980’s my wife and I went for an afternoon stroll in a public garden somewhere in the Greater Chicago area. (Can’t remember exactly where, now.) The walking paths were covered with cacao hulls. There was a faint chocolate smell to them.
cocoa mulch, we put it in our beds one time when I was younger and it got a super weird fungus growing through it
I loved seeing the difference in size and complexity between Van Houten's original equipment and the much smaller and cheaper machines we have today. Crazy to think that those two devices did the same thing
That Dutch oven simply being there uncommented on the stovetop is a nice touch!
I protest, properly made traditional chocolate in water is delicious.
Mr. Ragusa is not expert, and don't claim to be, but you never pestle the nibs in a cold mortar, heating the grinder is necessary to emulse the chocolate butter and avoid a gritty oily product.
Also, don't be a masochist, even the Aztecs, that take their chocolate much more bitter than us, used vanilla pods and honey to perfume and sweeten it.
If you want to make a maybe even more paletable drink from cocoa you could titrate the sodium hydroxide. So just do a 10-20 percent solution of lye and put like 2ml at a time of lye water and watch the ph rise to 8. Keep In mind that the ph climbs fast at the start but slows down of near the ph of about 11.
Love having the science explored, great video.
the background of the history of food enhances appreciation. I am listening to a culinary cultural history on audible right now.
"i dutched it a little too hard" I laughed too hard at that.
Recently I've been experimenting with alkalizing different acids into their conjugate bases with sodium carbonate. I just made sodium acetate and it tasted quite a bit better than sodium hydroxide. I'll get back with my pick for my favorite conjugation. Currently my favorite sour flavor is tartaric acid, but I have a feeling that it might not taste great as a base. Lactic acid is my bet for best tasting conjugate sodium salt. It might be interesting to test what chocolate nibs taste like when they're dutched with different bases.
How do you know whether what you make is safe to eat?
@@pdp11 there are great manuals for safe food additives done by Ruth Winter. Richard Nixon set up a standard called GRS or generally recognized as safe which you can usually access through consumer reports of one kind of another since they're part of the public trust. We've come a long way since the 60s and there is extensive documentation on the effects and safety of common flavor compounds. However, I would generally recommend high levels of water intake if you are going to ingest anything out of the ordinary. Certain "pure" compounds contain various surfactants and semi polar solvents that are not good to ingest, however, generally speaking if you're stoichiometrically only producing compounds that are commonly used in packaged food you are pretty safe.
I've played around a bit with phosphoric acid (Watch the concentration! It is more harmful than most food additives.), trying to create something similar to cola, and I still have a bottle somewhere. You've got me wondering how the conjugate base tastes. Googling.... googling... OK wow. Yeah, don't do that. It can seriously lower your blood potassium levels if you ingest too much. Obviously the same is true for the acid, since your body is less acidic so it will convert part of it into the base, but still: Why risk it. Also, I read it is odourless, which usually means the flavour mainly comes from the acidity.
Hella yes! Great video, Adam.
Man, I love this show.
I'm a soap maker myself, so I freaked out a bit when you added the lye to the oily substance haha :D Nice video
As a european, I've never heard anyone but Americans talk about dutch cocoa, ever. But I have a box of van Houten cocoa powder in the cupboard so I guess it's what I've been using all along.
I’ve definitely had non-dutched cocoa desserts all over Europe. It’s not an American-specific thing.
@@dewilew2137 how do you know whether or not they are dutched? I speak three languages and uses to bake a lot and English is the only language where I've heard people talk about the concept.
@@kisikisikisi Depends widely on country and specific labeling laws, but dutch process cocoa will usually list an acidity regulator, (sodium carbonate, potassium hydroxide, potassium carbonates, or something like that) in the ingredients.
Ritual Chocolate has a 100% pure cacao bar that is amazing - however it took them a really long time to get the correct bean blend to make it work.
Great video. Thank you for putting this together.
Cocoa nibs are gross on their own but go great in pralines added along with the nuts. The little bitter crunches help to balance the overwhelming sweetness that comes from being two thirds sugar and one third dairy.
It's the Liver King of cocoa?
Dutch cocoa burning holes in livers
At some point I asked a question about this subject in te comments, now it answered. I'm happy. Thank you :)
I love everything that I learned here so much!
Just be careful baking with dutch cocoa. Depending on what you're baking, you can end up with a dessert that tastes like soap. Or if you use it in place of natural cocoa in a cake, it may not rise very well because there was no acidity to react with the baking soda for levening.
OOH! That explains why so many of my chocolate cakes ended up tasting like literal soap. Now that I have access to natural cocoa I can go back to baking with confidence
Does this stuff exist outside of North America? In the UK and I've literally never heard of this stuff outside of Adam's videos.
Same Swede here never seen or heard of it
Lots of chocolate products in the UK are alkalized (dutched), but for some reason they just don't market them as such. I wonder if it's a difference in labeling laws? Anyway, here's a popular dutch cocoa powder in the UK, notice the "Acidity Regulator (Potassium Carbonates)" listed in the ingredients: www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/250610609
Wonder if it's due to EU regulations
We have it in Czechia, dunno, maybe different naming?
@@aragusea Thanks a lot Adam! :D
Hi Adam, been loving the content recently! Do you mind sharing your hair styling technique/products you use? I'm growing my hair out and I'm at a similar length, but I'm having a hard time achieving the type of texture you've got going. my hair is pretty thick and about as wavy as yours.
Awesome video. I wanna see more on nixtamilization/lye use in food.
Adam, I realize you are aware of this, but you probably shouldn't handle pure NaOH or a solution of it without appropriate gloves, you need your hands to cook after all. I hope you hands didn't get any chemical burns
Edit: probably should have put the gloves on first, still hope you got no burns from it
This is one of those topics that is very american. Here in sweden we only have one typ of cocoa. I didn't even relize that there were diffrent types. After a bit of researching i found out that we only have the dutched. Makes me wonder in which context do you use the "natural" kind?
Just depends on what flavor is desired. That's really the only difference. They both taste like chocolate; the "natural" variety will be a bit more sharp and bitter in a desirable way, like dark chocolate, whereas the dutch process is a bit softer and more subtle.
It's also not an "American topic". Many countries besides the U.S. sell both types.
Weird. If you were only going to have one kind I'd think it would be the natural variety... In what context do we use the natural variety? In every context calling for cocoa powder. Cookies, brownies, cakes, hot chocolate etc. Only specific recipes call for Dutch chocolate, such as a Dutch chocolate cake. Granted they can be used interchangibly for the most part, so the really strange thing is how your whole concept of the world of chocolate is one dimensional in the Dutch variety for you, I wonder how that came about?
Same, never knew there are different sorts of this. I just grab the one intended for drinking and that's it. There is also absolutely no information on them if they are processed like that. The one I have right now has potassium hydroxide in the ingredients.
There is also Bensdorp and it says "loyal to danish tradition" which before the video I'd have just assumed is a PR slogan instead of meaning how it's processed.
There is also cocoa labeled as "for baking" but it also contains sodium hydroxide (like Bensdorp).
This was such a great video. Thank you.
I blend a bit of dutched cocoa with regular and the result is fantastic.
brazilian, fresh bean meat is actually rather sweet, I wouldnt really call it potato-y
also nibs are great for inside brownies, gives you the nut without the nut
After seeing a few RUclipsrs being disgusted by natural cocoa, I have to say I was surprised how much it smells and tastes of chocolate (because it is, obviously).
Just commenting to say you guys should try it. I liked it a lot and wasn't nearly as alienated as RUclipsrs make it out to be. I can definitely see why people used to drink it without any sugar.
The lye-cocoa solution was clearly the inspiration for original Zune player color scheme.
Fascinating. Just recently saw NileBlue's video about making chocolate from beans. I'm happy for commercial choco powder and chocolate bars, let's say that. Also the commercial Van Houten cocoa powder today is quite the experience too if you're used to stuff like O'boy that's 80% sugar.
Adam Dutched that cocoa like it was an African/New world country.
You mentioning Cadbury reminds me about your video about American vs European chocolate, in which you say with confidence "European chocolate is made with vegetable oil." As if that's true for all European chocolate. Most of the continent makes it with cocoa butter only. As a Belgian this hurts me quite irrationally.
Not even sure why I'm commenting that on this video, I just want the world to know damn it!
Edit: Great vid btw. Should mention that too.
Cocoa butter is technically a vegetable oil.
@@onodera3964 You are technically correct. The best kind of correct.
he didn't say it was true for all brands, he was talking about Cadbury specifically.
That is not what I said, FYI.
Finally! I've been waiting for this
Great video..... It is really so different and it makes me think about the quality we get in Germany.....
I loved the part where Adam said "it's cocoaing time" and cocoaed all over the place
You see, Dutch cocoa is Dutch, while other cocoa is not Dutch. Hope that clears it up for you.
This made me wanna make hot chocolate, I actually bought dutched cocoa powder for it, I’m excited to try that out
Absolutely fascinating 😮
As ever 👌
I enjoyed this, but IMO the casual use of sodium hydroxide like this (Not sure how much to add? not wearing gloves to start? no mention of eye protection?!) in a for-general-consumption RUclips video is dangerously irresponsible content creation and I've come to expect better from Adam!
Why anyone would bother with anything produced by western corporate entertainment/media industries (and their advertiser buddies) is beyond me, when we’ve got people like Adam making top tier media like this. (Sorry, but I hate the word “content”, it’s dehumanizing)
If you know how to filter out the drek shoveled at us by RUclips (cough-Google-cough) you find so much great stuff, made by our fellow hoomans.
Ok Adam, can you now do a video on the different uses and situations where one would use natural coca vs dutch processed cocoa.
I absolutely loved this video it was phenomenal. I’m doing some research right now on a Coco brand and I was hearing all of this chatter about Cacoa versus Coco versus this versus that and I want to feel good about the product that I’m using and recommending to people. This video gave me some great insight. I love how you did everything very scientifically in a research and I love Audible it’s an amazing platform. 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉❤❤❤❤
Adam do not drink liquids with sodium hydroxide in them... holy fucking shit.
What the fuck man xD
Even if the ph of a solution is in a "safe range", the pka of the NaHO molecules is high enough to damage cells.
Like you wouldnt want to ingest a solution of nitric acid, no matter if the PH was only 6.7 or 1. It causes damage either way.
Ph measures the average concentration of H- and OH- ions... but it doesnt account for molecularly localized effects of chemicals.
Do not ingest NaHO please xD
What the hell is a NaOH molecule?
@@lukeo5908 Na -- symbol for sodium, OH -- oxygen and hydrogen, i.e. hydroxide. So -- Sodium Hydroxide. My high school chemistry comes to the rescue!
The real chemist here: NaOH is not a molecule, but an ionic compound. Sodium hydroxide itself doesn't have any pKa value, the closest particle to it that has is water. pKa itself just shows the pH, at which there's an equal amount of protonated (H2O) and deprotonated (OH-) particles in the solution, so it is not a direct measure of cell damage it can cause, but just a measure of acidity (basicity). The nitric acid on the other hand is a strong oxidizing agent and NO2 source, so there're more ways it can damage your organism than just being strongly acidic. Nonetheless, I agree that it is a bad idea to drink either NaOH or HNO3.
@@AML2000 I was being facetious. There’s no such thing as a NaHO molecule because the constituent atoms of salts either form ionic bonds as part of a theoretically infinite lattice structure, or dissolve into individual ions in solution. I don’t know what OP is talking about about when he mentions the pKa of ‘NaOH molecules’.
You might want to re-open your chemistry books because you have some strange ideas about pH and safety.
Jeezus, the lye bit there. I'm glad you're still with us. Please be more careful.
Thanks for answer a question I never had but am now happier for knowing th answer to
I never comment on youtube videos but your content is something i always look forward to :) especially the researched videos. Shame that for the most of the recipe's you make i cant get the ingredients since i live in a small town in north west Africa and the target audience is probably EU and NA. cheers
Great channel, watched this vid and so impressed with the informative content that I instantly subscribes. Keep up the great work, your made for youtube.
I love cocoa nibs, and so does my son! They’re delicious and super crunchy.
Cool that the Van Houten company still exists making cocoa. It's what I have literally on my shelf right now.
Cocoa husks can be used for tea. It's a light chocolate-flavoured tea, good for mixing with spices, peppermint tea, and drinking sweetened and milked.
The other thing I am reminded of with the mention of raw chocolate tasting sour - ruby chocolate. I took a quick look at Wikipedia and the process is different, but the result is a pink chocolate with a slightly sour berry-like flavour.