The Stone Grinder..

With about two more weeks left before our new MacIntyre conche refiner shows up on our doorstep from Scotland we're both busy wrapping up a lot of finishing touches at the shop. Lots of beans are arriving, Bryce is carving out our wrapper art press, bulk bar packages are being developed, signs are being designed, refrigeration getting sorted..the list goes on and on. In the meantime we've also gotten ourselves a stone grinder from 'ol Mexico. The reason we decided to do an initial grind before concheing is so instead of putting whole cocoa nibs staright into the conche with the other ingredients we can first grind down the nibs to a liquid. This will, in effect, lower the amount of stress on the conche. We also think that keeping in step with southern artisan chocolate making that nothing but a natural stone initial grind is order. It's yet another amazing (and simple) machine and will give us yet another device to tinker with until the conche arrives.