A process and a
plant are proposed for producing
dark chocolate which make it possible to produce
dark chocolate, in particular also single-variety
dark chocolate, having a high cocoa content without cocoa
powder needing to be produced and / or added. By means of a partial
defatting of the cocoa
mass in a process step which is connected upstream of the mixing,
grinding and / or conching, the
fat content in the cocoa
mass is reduced to the extent that dark chocolates can be produced having a high cocoa content without cocoa
powder needing to be added. The partial
defatting of the cocoa
mass is preferably carried out using a decanter (50). The cocoa butter fraction (2) according to the invention occurs on decanting as a high-fat fraction which still contains a fraction of 17 to 21% by weight, a maximum of 30% by weight, of fat-free cocoa
dry matter. In the novel process according to the present invention, the expenditure for producing a highly defatted cocoa
powder is avoided, since the cocoa mass (11) is only defatted to the point that the mass produced therefrom can be comminuted without problem using rollers (30) and can subsequently be conched. The cocoa butter fraction is added during conching after the
comminution in a
ball mill.