GB2616043A

GB2616043A - Chocolate flaking

Info

Publication number: GB2616043A
Application number: GB2202621.5A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Wood Simon
Original assignee: Hotel Chocolat Ltd
Current assignee: Hotel Chocolat Ltd
Priority date: 2022-02-25
Filing date: 2022-02-25
Publication date: 2023-08-30
Anticipated expiration: 2042-02-25
Also published as: GB202202621D0; GB2616043B

Abstract

A method of making chocolate flakes for hot chocolate beverages comprises tempering chocolate; cooling the chocolate to a solid; cutting the chocolate at a cutting station (Fig 1, 2) to form a first stage flakes; and conveying the first stage flakes, which further flakes the chocolates, to a weighing and packing station. Preferably, the flakes are further flaked using a vibratory conveyor 50. The tempered liquid chocolate is preferably put on a travelling belt (Fig 2 and 3, 21) to form a strip which is cooled to form solid chocolate. The cutting station may comprise a drum with exits, each having blade(s) to cut the chocolate. The cutting station may comprise rotatable impellers adjacent to its circumference. The first flaking step may comprise breaking the chocolate by passing through rollers. The chocolate is preferably cooled to 8-10ºC before being fractured and/or flaked. The flakes may be further refined in a pin refiner 51. Preferably, the chocolate flakes are 10-15mm long and 1.2-1.5mm thick. The method minimises the production of chocolate dust. A preparation for making a hot chocolate beverage comprising the flakes is also claimed.

Description

Chocolate Hakim/ The invention relates to a method of flaking chocolate, in particular for use in the manufacture of a chocolate beverage preparation.

Preparations for making hot chocolate beverages are well known in the market and usually have as a main ingredient a chocolate powder and often use lower quality chocolate than the same brand would use for their chocolate bars. Powder has generally been used in the commercial market as it is readily soluble in warm milk due to the greater surface area.

Hot chocolate formulations are usually prepared by mixing standard cocoa powder, sugar and milk. Cocoa powders are typically made via the Dutching' process, in which roasted cocoa beans are soaked in an alkaline solution, dried and then crushed, releasing the cocoa fats. Whilst the cocoa powder obtained through this process is suitable for baking applications, it lacks organoleptic properties such as flavour depth needed for a full-bodied cocoa drink formulation.

However, production involving powders has the problem that the chocolate dust produced by the production processes will tend to contaminate the area in which the machine is located as well as the machine itself, which limits the ability of the machine to be used to produce different types or flavours of hot chocolate or requires significant machine downtime for cleaning Powders also suffer from a consumer perception that they are a low value product.

GB2022390 discloses a melted chocolate liquor is mixed with water and 20-60%, and preferably 25-50% by anhydrous weight of the total mixture, of starch, a starch derived product, or a product containing starch. The resulting blend is then drum dried to a moisture level of 12% or less, and preferably 5%, and pulverised or flaked to produce stable free-flowing chocolate flakes or powder using a hammer mill.

BE781261 discloses a machine for producing chocolate flakes, particularly for use in decorating pastries and cakes, comprises a knife driven rotationally round a horizontal axis, means for supporting and guiding one or more blocks of chocolate and for advancing these towards the knife at a rate dependent on the rate of chocolate removal and means for collecting the shaved-off chocolate flakes at a position outside the sphere of action of the knife. Such solutions are generally too slow to produce chocolate flakes in desirable volumes with commercially available solutions limited to as low as 4 kg per hour of chocolate processing.

The mechanical properties of chocolate are complex -see for example International Journal of _Food Science and Technology 2009, 44, 111-119. A further known problem with existing solutions is that not all chocolate formulations are brittle including several popular flavours such as salted caramel.

There therefore exists a need for a method and apparatus for producing a preparation for making a hot chocolate beverage that produces less chocolate dust than the known processes.

According to a first aspect of the invention there is provided a method of making a preparation for making hot chocolate beverages comprising the steps of tempering a chocolate preparation to produce a tempered liquid chocolate; cooling the chocolate to a solid and feeding the chocolate to a cutting station, cutting the chocolate at the cutting station to form a first stage flake; conveying the first stage flakes to further flake the chocolate, the further flaked chocolate being passed to a weighing and packing station According to a second aspect of the invention there is provided a preparation for making a hot chocolate beverage made by the method of the first aspect of the invention.

The solution according to the invention enables the production of chocolate flakes in a process from liquid chocolate to flakes without shaving a solid chocolate block.

The solution according to the invention advantageously solves the problem of the known solutions which create high levels of chocolate dust and avoids imparting static into the flakes which would otherwise tend to stick to surfaces. The chocolate flakes are also much less likely to become airborne which would contaminate areas of the equipment and process, impacting efficiency. The production of flakes also addresses the problem of powder contaminating sachet seal areas at the point of the seal being formed at typically 180 C and further enables increased throughput and ability to handle a greater range of flavours An exemplary embodiments of the invention will now be described in greater detail with reference to the drawings in which: Fig. 1 shows a partial view of a first embodiment of the invention Fig. 2 shows a first view a second embodiment of the invention Fig. 3 shows a second view of the second embodiment of the invention Fig. 4 shows an extruder element top view Fig. S shows the bottom view of the extruder element Fig. 6 shows schematically subsequent processing of flakes Figure 1 shows a partial view of apparatus for a first embodiment Chocolate is a finely milled suspension of roasted, shelled cocoa beans and sugar often containing additional cocoa butter, milk powder (milk/white/caramel types only) and lecithin (commonly soya or sunflower).

Chocolate is subject to a legal definition based on The Cocoa and Chocolate Products (England) Regulations 2003 Complete definitions and designated products are defined within the complete regulations.

Chocolate -The product obtained from cocoa products and sugars which contains not less than 35 per cent total dry cocoa solids, including not less than 18 per cent cocoa butter and not less than 14 per cent of dry non-fat cocoa solids.

Milk Chocolate -The product obtained from cocoa products, sugars and milk or milk products which contains- -not less than 25 per cent total dry cocoa solids; not less than 14 per cent dry milk solids obtained by partly or wholly dehydrating whole milk, semi-skimmed or skimmed milk, cream, or from partly or wholly dehydrated cream, butter or milk fat; not less than 2.5 per cent dry non-fat cocoa solids; not less than 3.5 per cent milk fat; not less than 25 per cent total fat (cocoa butter and milk fat) White Chocolate -The product obtained from cocoa butter, milk or milk products and sugars which contains not less than 20 per cent cocoa butter and not less than 14 per cent dry milk solids obtained by partly or wholly dehydrating whole milk, semi-skimmed or skimmed milk, cream, or from partly or wholly dehydrated cream, butter or milk fat, of which not less than 3.5 per cent is milk fat.

One of the more difficult problems with processing high quality chocolate is that as the cocoa butter content increases for a high quality product, the firmness of the melted chocolate reduces significantly making its mechanical handling and cutting difficult. High volume, highly processed chocolate products therefore tend to have low cocoa butter content and high sugar content In the first embodiment of the invention the process comprises the following steps: In a first step the tempered liquid chocolate is formed. There are a number of known standard methods for tempering chocolate that will be familiar to a chocolatier. The tempered liquid chocolate is stirred and held at the appropriate temperature to prevent undesired crystals from forming in the liquid. An exemplary temperature for a dark chocolate would be around 30-32 °C and for a milk chocolate around 28-29 °C. The tempered liquid chocolate is then deposited into one or more moulds and cooled to a solid at below ambient temperature at 14-16 °C. The forced cooled chocolate is then de-moulded to form chocolate pieces having a mass of 12-15 grams and a volume of around 9-12cm-3.

The chocolate pieces are then placed on a conveyor 1 and fed to a cutting station 2, which comprises a hopper to receive the chocolate pieces, which hopper is located above a circular drum. The drum is provided with a plurality of cutting head assemblies each having a blade. Each blade is provided with a serrated edge suitable for flaking products.

In use the chocolate enters the rotating impeller and is urged against the inner surface of the cutting head assembly by centrifugal force. As the chocolate passes each knife it is cut into flakes. The length of the individual flakes is determined in part by the size of the chocolate pieces, the temperature of the cooled chocolate in addition to the knife set up. An exemplary temperature is 16-17 °C.

The flaked chocolate pieces then fall onto a vhopper,. The now shorter lengths are then vacuum conveyed to a weighing and packing station for filling and packing into individual containers. The first embodiment of the invention enables up to 130kg of flakes per hours Figures 2 and 3 shows a perspective view of the apparatus of a further embodiment. In this second embodiment of the invention the apparatus comprises an extruder 20 which is arranged so that the liquid tempered chocolate can be directly deposited on to a travelling belt 21 to form a strip. The chocolate is pumped from a mixing vat via the pumps 22 and first and second lines 23 to the extruder 20. The strip can be around 20mm wide and between 1.2-1.5mm deep. The strip may be wider or narrower than 20mm. In a particularly preferred embodiment, the belt can be up to 2m wide and so there can be multiple strips simultaneously. Due to the length of the extruder 20, it is possible for dead spots to occur within the extruder 20 at which the liquid chocolate can solidify, which would potentially block the extruder head. The extruder 20 is provided with a further element 24 shown in more detail in Figures 4 and 5. The further element 24 comprises an elongated channel 25 having first and second cut outs 26 located where the lines 23 connect to the extruder 20. The channel 25 is provided with a plurality of openings 26, specifically 7 are shown here.

Figure 5 shows the reverse side of the element 24 which in the installed position faces the travelling belt 21. Each of the openings 26 is provided with a cut out 27 in the surface of the opposed face of the element 24, which cut out 27 extends to the free edge of the element 24, which in the installed position is adjacent to the surface of the belt 21. In use, the liquid chocolate is pumped into the element which distributes the chocolate along the length of the channel. The chocolate then passes through the openings 29 and can then be deposited on to the belt 21 and the movement of the belt spreading it away from the opening. The arrangement of the openings and channel reduces the likelihood of dead spots forming in which the chocolate solidifies due to the improved fluid mechanics of the chocolate through the extruder 20 The chocolate on the belt is then subjected to 20m of linear cooling in the cooler 27 shown in Figure 2 to form a continuous strip of chocolate at approximately 8-10°C. At this temperature the brittleness of the chocolate aids the formation of the flakes.

The cooled chocolate strip is then passed through a series of rollers, which breaks the solid chocolate into pieces or first flakes. The pieces of chocolate are then passed to a vibratory transfer conveyor 50, which vibrates the chocolate flakes to further flake the chocolate without generating chocolate dust and transfer the resultant pieces and flakes to a pin refiner. The chocolate at this stage is either at its desired flake size, or at a larger size but fractured. As shown in Figure 6, the resultant flakes are dropped from the conveyor 50 into the hopper of a pin refiner 51. The pin refiner comprises first and second rotating cutters, the first cutter being located co-axially above the second cutter. Each cutter comprises two opposed blades, joined to rotate about a common axis such that the mass of the blades balance. The pin refiner further refines and renders more uniform the size of the individual flakes.

A typical flake produced in accordance with the invention will be between 10mm and 15mm long and around 1.2-1.5mm thick. A flake made according to the invention will produce a hot chocolate drink with improved organoleptic properties, in particular mouth feel. Drinks made in accordance with the invention will typically be perceived as having a fuller thicker body than drinks produced from powder or containing a significant proportion of powder.

The chocolate flakes are then transferred with a further vibratory conveyor to a weighing station.

At the weighing station the flakes are weighed into a sachet portion. The chocolate flakes, being relatively large compared to powder settle at the bottom of the sachet. The top of the sachet can then be sealed at a temperature of 180 °C. The bagged sachet is then checked to ensure that the sachet weight is correct and the sachet can then be X-rayed to check for any foreign body contamination as part of the food safety checks.

The second embodiment enables production of up to 600 kg per hour.

The invention provides methods of producing chocolate flakes from chocolate having a high cocoa butter content and a low sugar content, eg with a saturated fat value of greater than 35% or even 50%.. Preferably, dark chocolate contains minimum 70% cocoa solids. Preferably, milk chocolate contains minimum 50% cocoa solids, minimum 20% milk solids. Preferably, white chocolate contains minimum 35% cocoa butter. Preferably, caramel chocolate contains minimum 35% cocoa solids (cocoa butter, cocoa mass).

Claims

Claims A method of making a preparation for making hot chocolate beverages comprising the steps of tempering a chocolate preparation to produce a tempered liquid chocolate; cooling the chocolate to a solid and feeding the chocolate to a cutting station; cutting the chocolate at the cutting station to form a first stage flake; conveying the first stage flakes, which conveying further flakes the chocolate, the further flaked chocolate being passed to a weighing and packing station 2 A method according to Claim 1 wherein the first stage flakes are passed to a vibratory conveyor, which vibratory conveyor vibrates the first stage flakes to further flake the chocolate.A method according to Claim 1 or Claim 2, in which the tempered liquid chocolate is deposited on to a travelling belt to form a strip, which strip is then cooled to form a solid chocolate.A method according to any one of Claims 1 to 3, wherein the cutting station comprises a drum having a plurality of exits, each exit being provided with one of more blades to cut the chocolate.A method according to any one of Claims 1 to 4, wherein the cutting station comprises a plurality of rotatable impellers adjacent to its circumference each impeller being associated with a respective cutting head assembly having a blade.A method according any one of Claims 1 to 3, wherein the cutting station comprises first and second rotating cutters, the first cutter being located co-axially above the second cutter.A method according to any one of Claims 1 to 6, comprising a first flaking step in which the chocolate is broken by being passed through a plurality of rollers.A method according to any one of Claims 2 to 7, wherein the chocolate is cooled to 8-10 °C prior to being fractured and/or flaked A method of producing chocolate flakes between lOmm and 15mm long and around 1.2-1.5mm thick according to any one of Claims Ito 8.10. A preparation for making a hot chocolate beverage comprising flakes made in accordance with the method of Claims 1 to 9.