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Processing
of Cocoa Beans |
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About Cocoa > Processing of Cocoa BeansThere has been no change of processing of cacao
beans from harvesting through drying. This is done in the producing
countries. Harvesting
Once the flowers are pollinated the pods take
5-6 months to grow and mature to the yellowish red color of the ripened pod.
The pods are harvested manually. Once harvested, they may keep for about a
week before spoiling. After harvesting the pods are carefully cut open with
machetes and the beans with the pulp are removed. These are then placed in
large boxes, or just in heaps, covered with banana leaves and left to
ferment. The fermentation process gives flavor to the beans and the pulp
slowly liquefies and runs off as the temperature rises. This takes up to a
week. The beans start to germinate in the first couple of days of
fermentation, soon to be killed by the high heat produced by the
fermentation. This stage is important since ungerminated beans lack flavor.
The mass is turned from time to time so hot spots don't develop and the
temperature is maintained at around 110º F to 120º F. The beans are then dried either on patios for a
couple of weeks, or in an oven with continuous turning in order to reduce the
moisture content to about 7%. Then the beans are packed to be sent to
chocolate factories, mostly overseas. Roaster Roasting
When the dried beans are received at the factory
they are artfully roasted at 200º F to 250º F for one to two hours in order
to develop the flavor of the beans. The beans become brown in color and
friable (brittle). Next, the roasted beans are broken down and the thin
shell (chaff) is removed in the process called winnowing. The remaining
pieces of kernel are called cacao nibs, which have the final chocolate flavor
as we know it. Nibs contain about 400 different chemicals responsible for the
flavor of the final products. Grinding Machine Grinding
The nibs are ground under heavy steel rollers
with some heat. The grinding process also produces its own heat. The nibs
change into a thick paste called cacao liquor and contain about 50-55% cacao
butter. Filtering the Butter
Hydraulic Press Next, the liquor is filtered using hydraulic
presses to remove the colorless cacao butter, which is a liquid. The cacao in
the form of a cake remaining is used for further processing into cocoa, hot
chocolate and cheap commercial chocolates. The cake contains about 10-20%
butter. The high quality gourmet chocolates are made
from cacao liquore. Making Hot Chocolate Mix
The cacao cake is pulverized by grinding, then
mixed with ground sugar and milk powder, artificial shortening agents and
lecithin are added, to make it easily mixed in water to form the drink. This
is the typical commercial hot chocolate mix. The high quality gourmet hot chocolate like ours
is made by pulverizing the cake, adding some cacao butter and evaporated
sugarcane juice and also bits of dark chocolate. There is no dairy product or
other additives. The prepared drink can be made using milk, rice milk,
soymilk or water and spicing if desired. Making Chocolate
The cacao cake is ground and mixed with a little
cacao butter, shortening, lecithin, pulverized confectionery sugar,
flavorings and milk powder (for milk chocolate). The resulting mass is then
mixed and ready for refining. High quality gourmet chocolates are made from
cacao liquor, which is not filtered to remove the cacao butter. To this
pulverized confectionary sugar and vanilla or other natural flavors, milk
powder for milk chocolates, and a little lecithin are added. Refining
The above mixture is refined through a series of
rollers to give the chocolate its consistency by reducing the particle size
of the mixture so that they cannot be felt on the tongue. The size is
generally reduced to 20 millionth of a meter, smaller than the distance
between two sensory taste buds in the mouth. The process also creates its own
heat, which develops the flavor of the chocolate. Modern conching equipment Conching
The refined chocolate is further improved by
grinding under rollers of machines called conch because the resemblance of
its shape to a conch (shell). Here the refined chocolate is ground under
granite rollers, which goes back and forth on a flat granite table with
curved lips. When the rollers go back and forth on the lip, the mass splashes
on to the roller towards the main body of the machine. This friction produces
heat, develops the flavor and drives out volatile acids while masticating the
material. The process takes 1 to 3 days. High quality gourmet chocolates are still
manufactured using similarly designed equipments but the cheap commercial
chocolate is produced on equipments using heat and paddles to stir the mass
to remove the volatile acids and develop flavor. Tempering
The final step before molding into bars and
other shapes is tempering. The cacao butter when cooled forms two kinds of
crystals, stable and unstable. Unstable crystals form gray streaks, known as
bloom, in the final chocolate. Also, the chocolate should have mostly stable
crystals so it does not melt in the hand. To remove the unstable crystals the
chocolate is slowly heated to 118ºF (48ºC) to melt all the fat crystals. Then
it is cooled to 81ºF (27ºC) to set the correct amount of stable fat crystals
to provide the beginning of a structure (seed crystals). Unfortunately, some
unstable crystals are formed. To remove these the chocolate's temperature is
again increased to 90ºF (32ºC), which is warm enough to melt the unstable
crystals but not the stable crystals. In the final molded chocolate the
stable crystals give the bases to form the entire chocolate with stable
crystals. Chocolate melts at about 98ºF, which is the body
temperature, thus melting in the mouth.
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