About this project

Theobroma Cacao: Food of the Gods.

Greetings! My name is Daniel Schreiber, a graduate student in Computer Science who, rather than proving theorems, gets more pleasure from making functional, physical objects in traditional and loving ways, and I adore chocolate, don't you?.

I want to start a chocolate making company, the only thing stopping me is, being an impoverished grad student, I can't buy the equipment to make chocolate without, you know, not being able to afford rent and food.

What kind of chocolate will I make?
Fair Trade and Organic, of course! Fair Trade so that you know farmers growing the beans are treated well. Organic so you know the earth is treated well. I might, for instance, use these beans:
http://shop.chocolatealchemy.com/products/panama-ft-org-09
To start I will make dark chocolate, which is made just from cacao beans and sugar. Once I have this to perfection, the possibilities of adding nibs, dried fruit, bergamot oil (Earl Gray chocolate, anyone?) ... are endless.

How will I make chocolate?
In traditional ways, roasting, cracking and winnowing beans by hand, refining nibs into cocoa liqueur with granite stones, tempering and molding bars individually and by hand. I think skills such as making chocolate, and millions of other trades are important to preserve through their practice by real people, and not only by Hershey's. One of my major inspirations is Patric Chocolate who makes beautiful chocolate in Missouri:
http://www.patric-chocolate.com/store/

Finally, after I've perfected my bars I plan to take my chocolate to the people, distributing it at local coffee-shops, musical shows and online.

So: increase the happiness of the world, preserve traditional skills and get some delicious artisanal chocolate in return.

To get started I need to specifically buy this equipment:
Cacao Mill - To break roasted whole beans into cacao nibs for winnowing and further grinding.
http://www.danielhschreiber.com/chocolate/i/crankenstein.jpg

Santha Chocolate Mélangeur (this is the biggie!)- the name for this piece of equipment roughly means 'stir-smush,' and it's purpose is to break down cacao nibs into fine particles of chocolate only tens of microns in size.
http://www.danielhschreiber.com/chocolate/i/melangeur-2.jpg
What comes out of this machine is cocoa liqueur. This liqueur is then tempered, a process involving cooling the chocolate to specific temperatures, which results in chocolate's glossy finish and 'snap.' Then we mold and cool the chocolate to finally end up with a bar!

I'll also need molds, stone workspaces, chocolate syringes and other paraphernalia and of course lots of cacao beans!