What Is Conching in Chocolate? Meaning, Process and Equipment

Short answer: conching is the long mixing, shearing and heating of refined chocolate mass in a machine called a conche. It coats every sugar and cocoa particle with cocoa butter so the chocolate flows, drives off excess moisture and sharp volatile acids such as acetic acid, and rounds the flavour. It runs in three phases (dry, plastic and liquid), and there is no single correct time: conching too long or too short both hurt the flavour, so each maker sets time and temperature for their own beans and recipe.

What does "conching" mean?

A conche is "a machine in which chocolate is worked in the preparation of fine grades", and to conche is to work chocolate in that machine. The word comes from French, from an Old French word for shell, from the Latin concha (Merriam-Webster). In practice, "conching" names the step, and "conche" the machine.

Where conching fits in chocolate making

Conching comes after refining and before tempering. The full sequence is fermentation, drying, roasting and grinding of the cocoa beans, mixing of the ingredients (cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, emulsifiers and, for milk chocolate, milk components), then conching and tempering (Barišić et al., 2019).

Stage	What it does	Read more
Roasting	Maillard reactions form aroma compounds	How to roast cacao beans
Grinding and refining	Turns nibs into cocoa mass and reduces particle size	What is chocolate liquor
Conching	Coats particles with fat, removes moisture and volatile acids, sets viscosity, develops flavour and colour	This article
Tempering	Forms stable, evenly sized cocoa butter crystals	How to temper chocolate

What conching does to chocolate

Conching changes both texture and flavour at the same time. The research literature describes these effects:

Effect	What happens in the conche
Flow	After refining, sugar and cocoa particles sit in dry agglomerates that trap the fat. Shear breaks them up, the fat is released and coats the particles, and the viscosity falls as conching goes on (Guckenbiehl et al., 2024).
Moisture	Excess moisture is removed, which matters for the flow properties of the finished chocolate (Guckenbiehl et al., 2024).
Acidity	Undesired aroma compounds such as excess acetic acid and other short-chain acids evaporate. Desired aroma compounds are also lost, which is why time and temperature need care (Guckenbiehl et al., 2024).
Astringency	Volatile polyphenols evaporate early on, tannins oxidise, and polyphenols form complexes with proteins and peptides; this is one reason conching reduces astringency (Barišić et al., 2019).
Aroma distribution	Mixing and shearing move aroma compounds from the cocoa particles into the sugar and the fat, so the sugar also carries aroma (Barišić et al., 2019, citing Beckett).
Colour	Conching develops the colour of the chocolate (Barišić et al., 2019).
Milk chocolate	Lactose caramelises and Maillard reactions occur with milk proteins (Barišić et al., 2019).

The three phases of conching: dry, plastic and liquid

Conching is divided into a dry phase, a plastic phase and a liquid phase, named after the texture of the mass (Guckenbiehl et al., 2024; Fraunhofer IVV).

• Dry conching: the refined material starts as a dry powder and turns into a firmer, plastic mass.
• Plastic conching: the most important phase for texture and flavour, because the strongest shear forces happen here. Fraunhofer IVV notes that shear can generate temperatures of up to 90°C (194°F).
• Liquid conching: cocoa butter and/or an emulsifier is added and the plastic mass becomes a homogeneous, liquid melt.

For a sense of real numbers, here is how one published industrial trial ran a 200 kg conche for dark chocolate. It is a research set-up, not a recipe for your machine:

Phase	Trial settings (Guckenbiehl et al., 2024)
Dry	30 minutes at 50°C (122°F), lid open
Plastic	60°C (140°F) or 80°C (176°F), sampled hourly up to 6 hours, lid open
Liquid	Deodorised cocoa butter added, 50°C (122°F), lid closed, 30 minutes

How long and how hot? The temperature trade-off

There is no universal conching time: Fraunhofer IVV calls conching a very time-consuming and costly step and warns that conching too long or too short has a particularly adverse impact on flavour.

Temperature is the main lever, and it cuts both ways. In the 200 kg trial, conching at higher temperature lowered the viscosity fastest, but it also cut the concentration of value-adding aroma compounds the most, by up to 78% in the fat phase. The authors conclude that flow and flavour have to be balanced against each other (Guckenbiehl et al., 2024). An earlier study they cite on milk chocolate mass found that conching time (1 hour versus 3 hours) changed the viscosity significantly at 50°C and 55°C (122°F and 131°F), but not at 60°C (140°F), where the viscosity dropped faster (Urbańska et al., 2021).

What this means at the bench: decide what you are protecting. A delicate, fruity origin argues for gentler heat and tasting as you go; a mass that must flow thinly for enrobing argues for more time or heat. Log time, temperature and taste for every batch so you can repeat the result.

If your priority is keeping the aromatics of fine-flavour cacao, compare both approaches in our guide to low-impact vs traditional conching.

Conching vs refining: are they the same step?

No. Refining reduces particle size; conching coats the particles with fat, removes moisture and volatile acids, and develops flavour. In small bean-to-bar workshops one machine can do both:

• The Chocolate World M1025 → $1,750.00 CAD is a tabletop stone conche and refiner for batches of 1.3 to 4.5 kg, with a motor rated for up to 72 hours of continuous running and refining to under 20 µm.
• Bilait refiners keep the batch in a closed chamber that protects it from outside contamination and holds the volatile aromas; a conching fan and glass lid can be requested. The Bilait R15 refiner (Teflon) → $12,370.00 CAD heats to 70°C (158°F) and holds that temperature, so a batch can go through refining and conching in the same chamber.

Ball mills such as the FBM TAO KID $27,600.00 CAD (20–25 microns) and the Chocolate World BMR25 $59,750.00 CAD (18–20 microns) are refiners: they set particle size, and the flavour work happens in the conche.

View ball mills and chocolate refiners →

Which conche for which production

Each brand covers a different scale, so the choice follows your batch size and how many steps you want in one machine:

Your production	Machine	What it gives you
Small batches of bean-to-bar chocolate, nut and seed butters	Chocolate World M1025 (110 V)	Low-impact tabletop conche with granite stones, 1.3–4.5 kg per batch
Small bean-to-bar, refining and conching in one chamber	Bilait R7, R15 or R60 refiner	7, 15 or about 60 kg; conching fan on request (R7, R15); double conching fan on the R60
Growing bean-to-bar line feeding a tempering machine	FBM KLEEGO 50 or KLEEGO 100	Melting tank plus conche (50 kg tank with 35 kg conche, or 100 kg tank with 65 kg conche); counter-rotating stirrers, forced hot air, CPU control of speed, airflow and temperature; pumps straight into a tempering machine

The KLEEGO 100 product data states that it cuts conching time to under 3 hours. Prices: KLEEGO 50 $23,899.00 CAD, KLEEGO 100 $36,500.00 CAD. The FBM machines are made to order in Italy; ask us about current availability for all three brands.

View chocolate conches →

View Bilait bean-to-bar machines →

Start with the beans: what goes into the conche

Conching works on what fermentation and roasting have already built: fermentation forms the precursors that later reactions need, and the most intensive chemical changes happen during fermentation, roasting and conching (Barišić et al., 2019). Well-fermented, traceable beans give the conche better material to work with.

• Sur del Lago Ancestral Criollo Lineage cocoa beans, Venezuela → from $80.00 CAD. Trinitario with 10–30% ancestral Criollo lineage, fermented to ≥65% uniformity, sun-dried over 7 days to about 5.4% moisture; fruity, woody and nutty with low acidity and low astringency. Each lot comes with a Certificate of Origin & Authenticity. 1.5, 5, 20 and 60 kg.
• Hacienda Victoria cocoa beans, Ecuador → from $59.50 CAD. 100% Arriba Nacional, 75% minimum fermentation, 7 days of slow sun-drying.
• Ucayali Peru fine-flavour cacao beans → from $80.00 CAD. Fermented and sun-dried; very low bitterness and astringency.
• Natural cocoa butter, 100% Peruvian fine cacao → from $69.99 CAD. Non-deodorised, in easy-melt wafers, for the cocoa butter you add in the liquid phase.

Not making chocolate from the bean yet? Bassan Sur del Lago 71% dark couverture → from $69.95 CAD is made from the same Venezuelan origin.

For the theory behind every step, from raw material to finished chocolate, Chocolate by Ramon Morató → $160.00 CAD includes a full section on chocolate as a product.

View single-origin cacao beans →

How AI can help your production

Keep a simple batch log for every conche run: bean lot, roast, batch weight, phase times, temperatures, cocoa butter added and tasting notes at each sample. Paste a few weeks of logs into an AI assistant and ask it to line up which settings gave the flavour and flow you liked, to flag batches that drifted, and to turn your best run into a written procedure your team can repeat. It can also scale your cocoa butter and emulsifier additions when you change batch size.

AI organises the information; tasting and the final decision stay with your chef.

Bean-to-bar equipment and cacao at Zucchero Canada

We are the exclusive Canadian distributor of Bilait and an authorized distributor of FBM Boscolo and Chocolate World. Bilait machines come with pre-purchase consultation and Calgary-based technical support. On the ingredient side, we source cacao beans through Canada Cacao Co., and every Sur del Lago lot carries its Certificate of Origin.

Priority allocation is available for standing B2B orders. Contact our team to discuss equipment, sourcing or the set-up of your bean-to-bar line.

Bean-to-bar machines | FBM Boscolo | Cacao beans | Low-impact vs traditional conching | How to roast cacao beans

This article is for information only. Every business is different: draw your own conclusions based on your own expectations, budget and goals, and talk to qualified experts before you decide or invest.

Sources: Guckenbiehl Y. et al., "Conching of dark chocolate – Processing impacts on aroma-active volatiles and viscosity of plastic masses", Current Research in Food Science 9 (2024) 100909; Barišić V. et al., "The Chemistry behind Chocolate Production", Molecules 24 (2019) 3163; Fraunhofer IVV, "Model-based conching"; Merriam-Webster, "conche"; Bilait catalogue 2026 (refiners R7, R15, R60); Chocolate World equipment catalogue (M1025); FBM Boscolo and Chocolate World product data; Canada Cacao Co. and Hacienda Victoria product data.