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From Cocoa bean to the basic ingredients for chocolate

Translated with AI.

From cocoa bean to chocolate ingredients

Harvesting cocoa beans

  1. Checking ripeness – Before harvesting, the cocoa pods must be carefully inspected to ensure they are fully ripe. Ripe pods have a deeper colour and are softer.
  2. Picking by hand – Cocoa pods are usually picked by hand to avoid damaging the beans. This is a labour-intensive process.
  3. Opening the pods – The pods are opened, usually with a machete, to remove the cocoa beans and pulp.

Fermentation

  1. Combining pulp and beans – The cocoa beans and pulp are placed together in boxes or baskets. The pulp helps fermentation.
  2. Covering and stacking – The boxes or baskets of beans and pulp are covered with banana leaves or another material to seal them off from the air.
  3. Fermentation time – The time varies but can range from several days to a week. Complex flavours and aromas develop during this period.
  4. Checking temperature and aeration – During fermentation, temperature and aeration must be monitored to ensure bean quality.
  5. Daily checks – The beans are inspected regularly during fermentation to determine when they are sufficiently fermented.

Drying

  1. After fermentation, the beans are dried in the sun to reduce moisture and improve keeping quality before further processing.

From cocoa bean to cocoa mass

The dried beans are cleaned, pre-roasted, broken and shelled. What remains is called nibs.

The nibs are roasted again, and this process determines the final flavour. At this stage, a manufacturer can add extra colours and flavourings to optimise the flavour of the cocoa pieces (nibs).

The nibs are ground into cocoa mass.

Pressing cocoa mass

The cocoa mass is pressed to remove the fat (cocoa butter). What remains is a cocoa cake that is ground into cocoa powder.

Basic chocolate ingredients

This gives us two basic chocolate ingredients: cocoa powder and cocoa butter. Together with sugar and milk powder, we have listed the 4 ingredients of chocolate.

All about chocolate

Belgian chocolate, chocolate