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Freshly roasted Venezuelan Carenero Superior beans give off a slight chocolate smell after roasting in John Nanci’s homemade roaster. Nanci will then turn the beans into homemade chocolate. The Oakland resident runs an Internet homemade chocolate supplies business, which he calls the first of its kind.
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ENLARGE
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Nanci runs an Internet business called Chocolate Alchemy. ‘Alchemist John,’ as he is known, makes chocolate completely from scratch and sells kits and equipment for others to do so around the world. At right is his homemade roaster and at left is an Indian curry paste machine turned into a chocolate tempering machine.
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ENLARGE
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John Nanci’s Champion Juicer grinder turns roasted beans into cocoa liqueur. The rear bowl contains a finer mix and the front will be reground until it becomes refined like
the paste behind it.
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ENLARGE
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Flakes of cocoa bean husks sparkle as light hits the flying debris while John Nanci separates the husks from the beans using a hair dryer at his home near Oakland recently. Once winnowed, he will grind the beans into a cocoa liqueur.
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OAKLAND — He’s looking for the sweet spot.
John Nanci is an alchemist. The word, which echoes back to the Middle Ages, refers to skilled men who could supposedly transform objects chemically, turning lead into gold.
But Nanci uses his brand of alchemy to turn raw cocoa beans into painstakingly crafted, incredibly edible handmade chocolate.
In his hands, the humble bean can turn into the silky chocolate bar – and it’s a process he was repeatedly told amateurs couldn’t do.
They said there’s no way to get cocoa beans in supplies small enough for the home cook — so Nanci discovered new suppliers.
They said you can’t find home-sized versions of the massive equipment the big chocolate companies use to cook, crush and grind the beans — so Nanci made or modified his own equipment.
And for the last couple years, he’s operated his own Web site selling cocoa beans and equipment to would-be chocolate makers around the world. He believes he’s the first person to create such a business.
“There’s thousands of ways to make chocolate,” Nanci said. “There’s no right or wrong way to make chocolate. It’s all to your taste.”
Nanci, 37, hopes he’s creating a boom in homemade food, a craftsman’s market similar to home-brewed beer or wine. In his day job, he’s a chemist for Umpqua Research Co. in Myrtle Creek.
But off the clock, he works in his other laboratory, a cozy shed on the hilltop property north of Oakland he shares with his partner, Penelope, and their daughter.
He brings a scientific eye to the problem of making chocolate – experimenting endlessly, using trial and error as he works his way toward creating the best chocolate he can.
“It’s the same reason I enjoy cooking,” Nanci said. “It’s just something that clicks.”
“He is a real master inventor and entrepreneur,” said one of Nanci’s customers, Jennifer Bennett of Pleasant Hill near Eugene. “One of the great things about him is that he’s very interested and dedicated to passing on knowledge without charging for it.”
John Nanci is an alchemist. The word, which echoes back to the Middle Ages, refers to skilled men who could supposedly transform objects chemically, turning lead into gold.
But Nanci uses his brand of alchemy to turn raw cocoa beans into painstakingly crafted, incredibly edible handmade chocolate.
In his hands, the humble bean can turn into the silky chocolate bar – and it’s a process he was repeatedly told amateurs couldn’t do.
They said there’s no way to get cocoa beans in supplies small enough for the home cook — so Nanci discovered new suppliers.
They said you can’t find home-sized versions of the massive equipment the big chocolate companies use to cook, crush and grind the beans — so Nanci made or modified his own equipment.
And for the last couple years, he’s operated his own Web site selling cocoa beans and equipment to would-be chocolate makers around the world. He believes he’s the first person to create such a business.
“There’s thousands of ways to make chocolate,” Nanci said. “There’s no right or wrong way to make chocolate. It’s all to your taste.”
Nanci, 37, hopes he’s creating a boom in homemade food, a craftsman’s market similar to home-brewed beer or wine. In his day job, he’s a chemist for Umpqua Research Co. in Myrtle Creek.
But off the clock, he works in his other laboratory, a cozy shed on the hilltop property north of Oakland he shares with his partner, Penelope, and their daughter.
He brings a scientific eye to the problem of making chocolate – experimenting endlessly, using trial and error as he works his way toward creating the best chocolate he can.
“It’s the same reason I enjoy cooking,” Nanci said. “It’s just something that clicks.”
“He is a real master inventor and entrepreneur,” said one of Nanci’s customers, Jennifer Bennett of Pleasant Hill near Eugene. “One of the great things about him is that he’s very interested and dedicated to passing on knowledge without charging for it.”
“I told him once, you know, you’re not supposed to give away all your secrets … and he just laughed at me and said, ‘Well, there’s way too much of that in this world.’”
<b>‘YOU CAN’T DO THAT’</b>
Nanci had been a longtime fan of organic food movements. He’d been roasting and grinding his own coffee from raw beans for years.
Through a gathering of fellow roasters, he met a man who had hand-prepared chocolate acquired in Oaxaca, Mexico.
“I tasted it, and it was the best chocolate I’d ever tasted,” Nanci said. “It was fresh. It was amazing.”
It inspired him to start his own quest. “I figured if this could be made by hand in Mexico, I could do the same,” he said.
But he encountered the same response from people in the chocolate industry as he began to explore home chocolate making — it takes sophisticated, expensive equipment and is just too hard for amateurs. That just fired him up, he recalled.
“My basic response was just OK, watch me,” he said.
The big suppliers would work in quantities of tons only, typically orders of 40,000 pounds of beans – a little more than Nanci wanted.
“It took almost a year to find beans,” he said, “Lots and lots of Web searching and going from one lead to one lead to another.”
He finally found 140 pounds of beans from a supplier in Ghana, and he was off.
“I started off with a single bag,” he said. “The next time, two bags. … The last order that came in was a ton, with three different varieties of beans.”
Three pounds of beans can equal three to four pounds of dark chocolate, and 15 to 20 pounds of milk chocolate. Nanci now works with three suppliers around the world to replenish his stock.
Then it was a matter of bringing out the science, using his alchemist’s eye to find the solution to the problem of chocolate making.
<b>‘YOU CAN’T DO THAT’</b>
Nanci had been a longtime fan of organic food movements. He’d been roasting and grinding his own coffee from raw beans for years.
Through a gathering of fellow roasters, he met a man who had hand-prepared chocolate acquired in Oaxaca, Mexico.
“I tasted it, and it was the best chocolate I’d ever tasted,” Nanci said. “It was fresh. It was amazing.”
It inspired him to start his own quest. “I figured if this could be made by hand in Mexico, I could do the same,” he said.
But he encountered the same response from people in the chocolate industry as he began to explore home chocolate making — it takes sophisticated, expensive equipment and is just too hard for amateurs. That just fired him up, he recalled.
“My basic response was just OK, watch me,” he said.
The big suppliers would work in quantities of tons only, typically orders of 40,000 pounds of beans – a little more than Nanci wanted.
“It took almost a year to find beans,” he said, “Lots and lots of Web searching and going from one lead to one lead to another.”
He finally found 140 pounds of beans from a supplier in Ghana, and he was off.
“I started off with a single bag,” he said. “The next time, two bags. … The last order that came in was a ton, with three different varieties of beans.”
Three pounds of beans can equal three to four pounds of dark chocolate, and 15 to 20 pounds of milk chocolate. Nanci now works with three suppliers around the world to replenish his stock.
Then it was a matter of bringing out the science, using his alchemist’s eye to find the solution to the problem of chocolate making.
It requires patience, and an appreciation for the art involved in creation. Nanci learned how to roast the beans, then grind them down into a cocoa liqueur. Other ingredients are added and gradually refined to create the final product.
“I roast by smell,” Nanci said.
As a batch of Venezuelan cocoa beans spun in the roasting drum on a recent afternoon, a distinctive chocolate aroma began to fill Nanci’s small work shed. His workspace is small but efficient – the various machines he’s created or modified dot the counters. Looking for a machine that could refine the cocoa liqueur, he found the Santha Wet Grinder created by an Indian company to make foods like curry paste and dahl.
He made modifications to the motor to keep it from overheating during the long refining time he needed – up to 24 hours or longer – and suggested other modifications to the company, which they made.
He’s now the only supplier of Santha Wet Grinders for making chocolate. “What I’m attempting to be is your one-stop chocolate making company,” Nanci said.
<b>‘NOT GOING TO MISS THIS WAVE’</b>
Once Nanci figured out the tools and technique, he decided to try a part-time business and founded the Chocolate Alchemy Web site in January 2004. In the 2 1/2 years since, it’s spread around the world.
He doesn’t sell the chocolate he makes – just the supplies and equipment for people to make their own. He was spurred to start the business after seeing how home hobbies once considered “impossible” like beer brewing and coffee roasting are now mainstream.
“On a purely business level I thought I’m not going to miss this wave again,” he said.
Nanci’s own chocolate runs the gamut of tastes, from the crisp kick of his dark chocolate to the buttery appeal of his milk chocolate.
What it all has in common is a sharp taste, a homespun allure that folks won’t find in a hundred Hershey bars.
“You don’t have to please anybody but yourself when you’re making chocolate,” Nanci said.
It’s not a hobby for dilettantes – Nanci estimates at a minimum a few hundred dollars is required for a bare-bones chocolate-making setup.
But through a combination of word of mouth, Google ads and more, he’s built up a steady customer list.
“It was specifically built to be an Internet business,” Nanci said. “(I have) no storefront and never intend to.”
“I roast by smell,” Nanci said.
As a batch of Venezuelan cocoa beans spun in the roasting drum on a recent afternoon, a distinctive chocolate aroma began to fill Nanci’s small work shed. His workspace is small but efficient – the various machines he’s created or modified dot the counters. Looking for a machine that could refine the cocoa liqueur, he found the Santha Wet Grinder created by an Indian company to make foods like curry paste and dahl.
He made modifications to the motor to keep it from overheating during the long refining time he needed – up to 24 hours or longer – and suggested other modifications to the company, which they made.
He’s now the only supplier of Santha Wet Grinders for making chocolate. “What I’m attempting to be is your one-stop chocolate making company,” Nanci said.
<b>‘NOT GOING TO MISS THIS WAVE’</b>
Once Nanci figured out the tools and technique, he decided to try a part-time business and founded the Chocolate Alchemy Web site in January 2004. In the 2 1/2 years since, it’s spread around the world.
He doesn’t sell the chocolate he makes – just the supplies and equipment for people to make their own. He was spurred to start the business after seeing how home hobbies once considered “impossible” like beer brewing and coffee roasting are now mainstream.
“On a purely business level I thought I’m not going to miss this wave again,” he said.
Nanci’s own chocolate runs the gamut of tastes, from the crisp kick of his dark chocolate to the buttery appeal of his milk chocolate.
What it all has in common is a sharp taste, a homespun allure that folks won’t find in a hundred Hershey bars.
“You don’t have to please anybody but yourself when you’re making chocolate,” Nanci said.
It’s not a hobby for dilettantes – Nanci estimates at a minimum a few hundred dollars is required for a bare-bones chocolate-making setup.
But through a combination of word of mouth, Google ads and more, he’s built up a steady customer list.
“It was specifically built to be an Internet business,” Nanci said. “(I have) no storefront and never intend to.”
“In the last year I’ve picked up approximately 270 customers,” he said. Many of them place multiple orders, and they come from all over the country and world.
“New Zealand is a particular hot spot right now,” he said.
He recently attended the International Association of Culinary Professionals convention in Seattle, where thousands of food industry workers look at the latest in culinary trends.
Food journalist Don Genova of Vancouver, British Columbia, met Nanci at the event and wrote favorably about his work on his own Web site.
“It’s quite an unusual idea as far as I know,” Genova said in an e-mail inteview.
“…Let's face it, people who eat Mars bars and Almond Joys aren’t going to get into this kind of thing, it’s way too labor-intensive.”
While unsure of the widespread commercial prospects of Nanci’s business, Genova spoke highly of Nanci’s dedication.
“People like John are like mountain climbers, they do it because it’s there, and I have a lot of admiration for the work he's put into it,” he said.
Nanci took on the nickname “Alchemist John” and sees his mission as liberating the truth.
“Alchemy has often been that forbidden knowledge. I want to pass that on,” he said. “There’s too much secrecy in the chocolate industry.”
“I’m no major corporation,” he said. “I’m just the one who’s got the motive to do it. All I can do is spread the word – the U.S. and the world is too big for one company to supply it.”
And he’s going to keep looking for that sweet spot in his own experiments and taste tests to perfect his recipes.
“New Zealand is a particular hot spot right now,” he said.
He recently attended the International Association of Culinary Professionals convention in Seattle, where thousands of food industry workers look at the latest in culinary trends.
Food journalist Don Genova of Vancouver, British Columbia, met Nanci at the event and wrote favorably about his work on his own Web site.
“It’s quite an unusual idea as far as I know,” Genova said in an e-mail inteview.
“…Let's face it, people who eat Mars bars and Almond Joys aren’t going to get into this kind of thing, it’s way too labor-intensive.”
While unsure of the widespread commercial prospects of Nanci’s business, Genova spoke highly of Nanci’s dedication.
“People like John are like mountain climbers, they do it because it’s there, and I have a lot of admiration for the work he's put into it,” he said.
Nanci took on the nickname “Alchemist John” and sees his mission as liberating the truth.
“Alchemy has often been that forbidden knowledge. I want to pass that on,” he said. “There’s too much secrecy in the chocolate industry.”
“I’m no major corporation,” he said. “I’m just the one who’s got the motive to do it. All I can do is spread the word – the U.S. and the world is too big for one company to supply it.”
And he’s going to keep looking for that sweet spot in his own experiments and taste tests to perfect his recipes.
ONLINE BUSINESS
Oakland’s John Nanci sells the beans and equipment to make homemade chocolate through his Web site.
Among the products available are six varieties of cocoa beans from Venezuela, Papua New Guinea, Ghana and Jamaica, and cocoa mills, juicers, roasting drums and more. There’s also a guide to making chocolate and a message board on the Web site. For information, visit www.chocolatealchemy.com |
“I’ve always liked the romantic notion of the alchemist,” he said. While he’s not turning lead into gold, he notes, “I’m making ‘almost gold’ from stuff they said you couldn’t make it from.”
<hr>
<b>The Fine Art of Chocolate-Making</b>
There are several steps to the fine art of making chocolate at home, turning beans into bars.
“The main thing about the chocolate is you’re going to make a mess,” Nanci cautions. He goes over the process in full detail on his Web site, but an abridged version of the steps follows.
<b>1. Roasting</b>
The raw beans arrive from the supplier already fermented. Fermented cocoa beans can be roasted in a variety of ways – in an oven, a coffee roaster, a drum roaster, or even with a hot air gun. They need to be roasted anywhere from 5 to 35 minutes somewhere in the vicinity of 250 to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Trial and error will help determine the right way for you – Nanci says they should “smell like brownies” when close to done. They’ll have an even color and texture when completed.
<b>2. Cracking and winnowing</b>
After they’re roasted, beans need to be cracked into pieces and the husks then separated from the nibs, or the bean pieces. Nanci uses the “CrankandStein” steel cocoa mill to crack the beans, then uses a small dryer to winnow out the husks. Optionally, this step can be skipped and the grinder used to crack, winnow and grind the beans (see below), although Nanci is still experimenting with the final product to test results.
<b>3. Grinding</b>
Once the beans are in pieces, they need to be ground into chocolate liqueur. After much experimenting with a variety of food processors, coffee grinders and more, Nanci now uses the Champion Juicer, which he also sells through his Web site. It grinds and separates the husks, turning the ground beans into a chocolate paste. The mixture may require a few passes to properly get the husks out and attain the right consistency.
<b>4. Refining </b>
Now the cocoa bean liqueur mixture needs to be ground down even further. Nanci uses the Santha Wet Grinder, which he modified for his purposes working with the company that manufactures it in India. The cocoa butter, sugar, lecithin and other ingredients, depending on whether you’re making dark or milk chocolate, are added at this stage. The Santha uses granite rollers to constantly mix the chocolate for anywhere from 10 to 48 hours until the right texture is achieved, removing all grit and creating a smooth, glossy chocolate look. “Each piece of equipment has its own job,” Nanci said.
<b>5. Tempering and molding</b>
Tempering chocolate is the final step that gives chocolate “that finished glossy, shiny appearance and that nice snap when you eat it,” Nanci said. Tempering involves bringing the chocolate to a temperature where the cocoa butter reaches its most stable form. After being tempered, the chocolate can be poured into molds using a syringe. After being allowed to cool and harden, it’s ready to eat!
Source and for more information: The Chocolate Alchemy Web site, www.chocolatealchemy.com.
<hr>
• You can reach Features Editor/Assistant City Editor Nik Dirga at 957-4210 or via e-mail at ndirga@newsreview.info.
<hr>
<b>The Fine Art of Chocolate-Making</b>
There are several steps to the fine art of making chocolate at home, turning beans into bars.
“The main thing about the chocolate is you’re going to make a mess,” Nanci cautions. He goes over the process in full detail on his Web site, but an abridged version of the steps follows.
<b>1. Roasting</b>
The raw beans arrive from the supplier already fermented. Fermented cocoa beans can be roasted in a variety of ways – in an oven, a coffee roaster, a drum roaster, or even with a hot air gun. They need to be roasted anywhere from 5 to 35 minutes somewhere in the vicinity of 250 to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Trial and error will help determine the right way for you – Nanci says they should “smell like brownies” when close to done. They’ll have an even color and texture when completed.
<b>2. Cracking and winnowing</b>
After they’re roasted, beans need to be cracked into pieces and the husks then separated from the nibs, or the bean pieces. Nanci uses the “CrankandStein” steel cocoa mill to crack the beans, then uses a small dryer to winnow out the husks. Optionally, this step can be skipped and the grinder used to crack, winnow and grind the beans (see below), although Nanci is still experimenting with the final product to test results.
<b>3. Grinding</b>
Once the beans are in pieces, they need to be ground into chocolate liqueur. After much experimenting with a variety of food processors, coffee grinders and more, Nanci now uses the Champion Juicer, which he also sells through his Web site. It grinds and separates the husks, turning the ground beans into a chocolate paste. The mixture may require a few passes to properly get the husks out and attain the right consistency.
<b>4. Refining </b>
Now the cocoa bean liqueur mixture needs to be ground down even further. Nanci uses the Santha Wet Grinder, which he modified for his purposes working with the company that manufactures it in India. The cocoa butter, sugar, lecithin and other ingredients, depending on whether you’re making dark or milk chocolate, are added at this stage. The Santha uses granite rollers to constantly mix the chocolate for anywhere from 10 to 48 hours until the right texture is achieved, removing all grit and creating a smooth, glossy chocolate look. “Each piece of equipment has its own job,” Nanci said.
<b>5. Tempering and molding</b>
Tempering chocolate is the final step that gives chocolate “that finished glossy, shiny appearance and that nice snap when you eat it,” Nanci said. Tempering involves bringing the chocolate to a temperature where the cocoa butter reaches its most stable form. After being tempered, the chocolate can be poured into molds using a syringe. After being allowed to cool and harden, it’s ready to eat!
Source and for more information: The Chocolate Alchemy Web site, www.chocolatealchemy.com.
<hr>
• You can reach Features Editor/Assistant City Editor Nik Dirga at 957-4210 or via e-mail at ndirga@newsreview.info.
