Curtis2010
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- Dec 6, 2011
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Most folks on HBT are not in locations where they have access to cocoa pods, but thought some might find this interesting anyway.
Ive lived in Guatemala for many years and cocoa is grown here. I have a couple of cocoa trees on my property just for grins, but Ive never tried processing the beans. I can buy nibs really cheap so never bothered, but had a few pods ready recently and decided to give it a go.
Cocoa is a fermented food and fermentation is the first step in the production process. So, I whacked my pods open and extracted the goo and seeds...which all come out as one big gooey mass...then plopped it all in a suitable container. Set the container outside covered by cheese cloth to collect some local bugs (cocoa is fermented by both yeast and acetabacter). Bugs found a home and went to work. Its been fermenting for a few days now and I just got a whif of vinegar so the acetabacter are going to work.
The alcohol and acetic acid produced by these critters modify the beans, which are dried after fermentation, then roasted before the thin husk is removed.
Ive lived in Guatemala for many years and cocoa is grown here. I have a couple of cocoa trees on my property just for grins, but Ive never tried processing the beans. I can buy nibs really cheap so never bothered, but had a few pods ready recently and decided to give it a go.
Cocoa is a fermented food and fermentation is the first step in the production process. So, I whacked my pods open and extracted the goo and seeds...which all come out as one big gooey mass...then plopped it all in a suitable container. Set the container outside covered by cheese cloth to collect some local bugs (cocoa is fermented by both yeast and acetabacter). Bugs found a home and went to work. Its been fermenting for a few days now and I just got a whif of vinegar so the acetabacter are going to work.
The alcohol and acetic acid produced by these critters modify the beans, which are dried after fermentation, then roasted before the thin husk is removed.
