One of my wife's friends somehow persuaded me to roast some cacao beans for her. She had fresh brewed cacao once and learning that I roasted my own coffee, persuaded me that I was perfectly suited now to do the same with cacao beans.
I bit.
Too much to chew.
Anyway, I've roasted about a half pound of some fancy pants Belizian cacao beans and I "think" they came out right. Ground them up in a whirly bird grinder (not running them through any of my coffee grinders) with the husk on and put about 6 TBs of ground stuff in my aeropress, filled it with water (inverted) and then steeped for 5 minutes. The extraction was almost impossible, so next time I'll use a french press, but the result was only so so. It was more than drinkable with milk and sugar. Delicious in fact with milk and sugar, but I'm groping in the dark here and the info on the web that i've found is contradictory or inconclusive.
Has anyone here done anything with brewed cacao? Any tips?
I bit.
Too much to chew.
Anyway, I've roasted about a half pound of some fancy pants Belizian cacao beans and I "think" they came out right. Ground them up in a whirly bird grinder (not running them through any of my coffee grinders) with the husk on and put about 6 TBs of ground stuff in my aeropress, filled it with water (inverted) and then steeped for 5 minutes. The extraction was almost impossible, so next time I'll use a french press, but the result was only so so. It was more than drinkable with milk and sugar. Delicious in fact with milk and sugar, but I'm groping in the dark here and the info on the web that i've found is contradictory or inconclusive.
Has anyone here done anything with brewed cacao? Any tips?