How to Make Cocoa Powder from Cocoa Fruit?

1. Fermentation:

The collected cocoa beans need to be fermented for a few days, depending on the variety. The average time is about 5-6 days, and the longest is no more than 7 days. Cocoa beans produced complex biochemical changes during the fermentation process, which improved the aroma and flavor. During fermentation, the unique russet color of cocoa beans is produced.

2. Drying:

The fermented beans need to be dried. It is usually dried in the sun. If there is good weather, the drying process usually takes several days. During drying, cocoa beans lose almost all of their moisture and more than half their weight.

 

3. Roasting:

Chocolate manufacturers will roast the purchased raw cocoa beans, and the roasting temperature and time will determine the aroma and flavor of the chocolate. Cocoa beans are heated and roasted at a high temperature of 120 to 130 degrees, and the whole process takes 30 minutes. Ensure that each cocoa bean has a strong cocoa flavor after roasting.

In factories, there are two common types of roasting machines for cocoa beans, as shown in the picture below. The first is a drum-type roasting machine with small output and is mainly used for semi-automatic production. The second is a continuous roasting machine, which is mainly used in automated factories. Both machines can automatically control the temperature to ensure the roasting quality of cocoa beans.

4. Peeling:

After roasting, the cocoa beans cool down very quickly, and their thin crust that becomes very crisp during roasting must be removed. Cocoa nibs produced by peeling and crushing cocoa beans.

In most factories, this process is completed by the "cocoa cracker and winnower". The cocoa beans are crushed by the squeezing of two rubber rollers, and then the outer skin is removed by a fan.

5. Grinding:

In a modern chocolate factory, we use a "cocoa grinder" to grind the crushed beans into a fine slurry.

 

During the grinding process, the cocoa butter contained in the cocoa nibs is slowly released to form a thick slurry (cocoa mass), which will condense into a lump (cocoa liquor) after cooling. Cocoa mass is the main raw material for making chocolate.

6. Pressing:

The ground cocoa liquor, cocoa butter and cocoa powder are contained in it. Then, it needs to be extracted by pressing.

 

Cocoa butter press is a hydraulic oil press that produces oil through the pressing force of a hydraulic cylinder. The machine adopts pre-setting of pressure and temperature and automatic control of working process. The pressure is large, the force is even, and the oil output rate is high.

7. Powder Grinding:

The cocoa liquor is squeezed to remove the oil and the cocoa cake is retained. The cocoa cake is crushed, ground, and sieved, and the brown-red powder obtained is cocoa powder. When squeezing, cocoa butter cannot be completely squeezed out, so the cocoa powder contains a small amount of cocoa butter.

 

The following cocoa powder grinder is a device for finely pulverizing materials. It adopts a pendulum designed to rotate at a speed of 3800r/min, and finally forms uniform cocoa powder through an adjustable mesh screen.

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