摘要 |
A process in which whole cocoa bean product, specifically a whole cocoa bean powder or liquor, is produced comprising the steps of subjecting the whole cocoa bean to a cleaning step in which the whole cocoa beans are passed through a cleaning machine that removes dried cocoa pulp, pieces of pod and other extraneous material to yield cleaned whole cocoa beans; pressing the whole cocoa beans to reduce the fat content to not more than 15wt% and to form a presscake and fat which is removed, subjecting the presscake to a particle size reduction step to obtain a bean intermediate whereby no more than 1vol% of the product has a particle size greater than or equal to 1cm; subjecting the bean intermediate to a microbicidal step to obtain a bean intermediate with a reduced microbiological content; subjecting the bean intermediate with reduced microbiological content to a drying step to reduce the moisture content to no more than 7wt% to give a dried bean intermediate; subjecting the dried bean intermediate to a particle size reduction step whereby no more than 2wt% of the product has a particle size of greater than or equal to 150µm characterized in that substantially no solids other than fat are removed; and a whole cocoa bean product is produced as the end product; |