Cocoa processing at Charley's

1. Mt Edna grown cocoa pods

The starting point is a cocoa pod (fruit) which has a 2-3 cm of rough, leathery rind, filled with sweet, mucilaginous pulp with a lemonade like taste.

It encloses 30 to 50 large seeds that are soft and of a pale lavender to dark brownish purple colour. Enough cocoa for one charley’s chocolate bar

      2. Pod opening machine Mt Edna

Developed by CSIRO as part of the original cocoa project of RIRDC,   Charley’s purchased a few years ago.  Suitable for large batches of pods

  3. An opened pod

Pods of seeds with white fleshy pulp

4. Fermented cocoa beans drying in the Mt Edna sun.

 Sun drying gives the best results but there are other methods. Charley’s uses sun dried beans.

5. Charley’s cocoa bean roaster as delivered

6. Winnowing was first developed to separate grain from straw and remove pests. At its simplest, beans are thrown into the air so wind blows away the lighter material, leaving heavier material to fall for recovery.

Our specialised cocoa winnowing equipment does the same for chocolate making

7. Conching

Once roasted and winnowed, using a conche (a vessel filled with stone grinders), the cocoa nibs can transform into chocolate.  

Charley’s uses traditional granite stone conches in a batch process to turn the nibs into chocolate mass.  Charley’s conching takes 24 to 36 hours  and we aim for below 20 microns.

8. Tempering

The next step is tempering, a heating process to stabilise the cocoa mass and add the shine. Uncontrolled crystallisation of cocoa can result in crystals of varying size, causing the chocolate surface to appear mottled and matte and the chocolate to crumble rather than snap when broken.

The uniform sheen and crisp bite of properly processed chocolate are the result of consistently small cocoa butter crystals from the tempering process and achieved at melting temperature of 34 °C. 

9. Packaging

After tempering, Charley’s chocolate is refrigerated and packaged by hand in recyclable materials, ready for dispatch to consumers.  Here is our Mt Edna Milk bar with art work by Kim Rayner.

To make the best dark chocolate, we use high quality beans and natural processes. Our chocolate is 70% cocoa and is handcrafted in Mission Beach from bean to bar or from cocoa pods from our trees through to chocolate bar.