Sour chocolate

In another thread I expressed my fondness for Lindt's 90% and 95% chocolate. Well, I made a mistake by buying a bar of Ghiradelli 86% chocolate. It has a definite sour taste, which I understand comes from butyric acid. Never again, but it's odd that other Ghiradelli chocolate bars I've eaten never tasted sour. Yuck.

Not sure about that. Ghirardelli is a reasonably good brand, owned by Lindt, and they have no need to commit lipolysis on their dairy or add butyric acid to keep up with Hershey's. You may just not like their sourcing.

By way of comparison, just tonight I have used two Ghirardelli 60% bars to make ice cream goo. Shiny, good snap, smells like chocolate, a tad sweet but that's OK in a cold dessert (cold subdues sugar impact on flavor).

I've eaten different Ghiradelli chocolates many times before without any flavor problems. I've also eaten other brands, including Hershey's, without any sour taste. And I doubt my taste buds are sophisticated enough to discern different sources. This particular bar simply tastes like there's a touch of vinegar in it. I've never tasted that before in any type of chocolate.

I wonder if it's a particular batch or a storage problem or whatever. I also wonder if I should ask Ghiradelli.

I suspect that the chocolate bar you bought had gone rancid. Butyric acid is the chemical responsible for rancid butter and oil. The chocolate may have been stored improperly somewhere along the way. Was it just this one bar that had the problem?

-Paul W.

Yeah, it's the first and only chocolate bar of any brand I've eaten in my entire life that ever tasted sour.

For yucks today, I bought an 85% Signature Select (store brand) bar made in Switzerland that's sustainable-certified. I'll try it tonight and let you know.

Well, the chocolate was okay, but kind of one-dimensional. It wasn't sour, though.

Thanks for the report, Larry. I have found my tastes wandering back towards 50%-65% rather than up in the bitter stratosphere.

Different strokes. I'm in the 90% or so. It is a leap from 85%, but Lindt bars are pretty smooth.