Triple Chocolate Liquor Mill

Triple Chocolate Liquor Mill

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Description
There are many stages in the process of making a luscious bar of milk chocolate from dried and roasted cocoa beans. This machine, a chocolate liquor mill used in the Hershey chocolate factory from about 1920 to the late 1970s, was critical in the early stages of the process. Between heated stones, the mill ground the "nibs," or cracked cores of the cocoa beans, melting the cocoa butter contained inside. The resulting liquefied cocoa butter and ground nibs produced a mixture called "chocolate liquor," (a liquor with no alcoholic content). Unsweetened chocolate liquor is very bitter, and, while normally it isn't eaten as is, it can be used in the production of certain food products or sold as baking chocolate. To make "eating chocolate," like that in candy bars, the chocolate liquor requires many more additives, as well as the processes of mixing, refining, and conching.
Milton Snavely Hershey's (1857-1945) road to becoming the most recognized name in the American chocolate industry was neither smooth nor entirely sweet. After failing at the confectionary business in Philadelphia, Denver, and New York, Hershey moved back to his hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and began a business making caramel candies. While the company enjoyed modest success, Hershey was continually experimenting with new products.
Location
Currently not on view
Object Name
triple chocolate liquor mill
date made
ca 1918
maker
J. M. Lehmann Machine Works
place made
United States: New York
Physical Description
cast iron (overall material)
stone (overall material)
Measurements
overall: 93 in x 132 in x 41 in; 236.22 cm x 335.28 cm x 104.14 cm
ID Number
1980.0021.01
accession number
1980.0021
catalog number
1980.0021.01
Credit Line
Gift of the Hershey Foods Corporation
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Work and Industry: Food Technology
Food
Work
Industry & Manufacturing
Data Source
National Museum of American History
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