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Fresh cocoa beans are scooped from the pod with their sweet white pulp and piled in heaps or boxes under banana leaves for four to seven days. Yeasts, then lactic and acetic acid bacteria ferment the pulp, the heat and acid kill the bean, and the beans are then sun-dried. This is where the precursors of chocolate flavour form. Made in 6 steps over 21 days – 34 days. The longest step, sun-dry on raised surfaces, takes 7–14 days (Camu N. et al. 2008) and runs at up to 65 °C (International Cocoa Organization (ICCO)). Yeasts and Lactiplantibacillus plantarum do most of the fermenting.
Amounts from a sourceAmounts describe farm heaps in a Ghanaian field study. Other farms use 100–200 kg heaps or wooden boxes of about 1,700 kg; there is no fixed recipe beyond beans, pulp and leaves.
250–1,000 kg per heap
Fresh cocoa beans with pulp · Pulp is about 12% sugars, pH 3.3–4.0, up to 10% pectin[camu2007][codex-cocoa]
Banana or plantain leaves · Laid under and over the heap[camu2007][icco]
No starter · Yeasts and bacteria come from the pods, hands, tools and old leaves[devuyst2020]
Starter
spontaneous
Total time across the recorded steps: 21 days – 34 days
Start
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What changes:Starting material: fresh cocoa beans in their white pulp
Step 1 of 6
Open the pods and scoop out beans and pulp
Time
up to 7 days
Set
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
pH 3.3–4
Set
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Yeasts
Lactic acid bacteria
Acetic acid bacteria
Pichia kudriavzevii
L. plantarum
Output: wet beans with pulp.
Flavour
Not documented
Texture
wet beans in white, slimy pulp
Colour
white pulp; purple bean inside
Microbes at work in this step
Not documented for this step.
Method
Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source
What makes this one different
Cocoa is fermented on the farm as a whole fruit mass. The microbes work only in the pulp; inside the bean, acid and heat from the pulp kill the seed and its own enzymes make the flavour precursors. The main split is heap versus box, and how often the mass is turned.
Heap (West Africa)100–1,000 kg on banana leaves; often turned once or not at all; 5–6 days by Ghanaian advice.
Box or cascade (Latin America, Southeast Asia)Wooden boxes with drain holes; beans mixed daily or tipped from box to box for air.
Basket, tray and platformSmaller lots; shallow trays let in more air and ferment faster.
Criollo versus ForasteroCriollo needs about 2–3 days; Forastero about 5.
Starter-culture fermentationChosen yeasts, lactic and acetic acid bacteria added for a steadier result (research and some commercial use).
Cacao pulp drinks and spiritspulp juice fermented to wine or distilled; Honduran evidence of a pulp beverage around 5.34% alcohol
Safety
Ochratoxin A is made by Aspergillus moulds when fermentation or drying goes wrong. Codex advice is to open pods within 7 days of harvest, ferment 4–7 days and no longer, turn the mass, start drying at once on raised surfaces in layers no deeper than 6 cm, and bring the beans below 8% moisture. Protect drying beans from rain and dew, never re-wet them, and throw out mouldy beans.
Hazards the sources name: Ochratoxin A-producing moulds (Aspergillus carbonarius and the A. niger group; fewer A. westerdijkiae, A. ochraceus and A. melleus).
Cocoa was first used in Mesoamerica; residue in Honduran pottery from after 1150 BCE points to a fermented pulp drink. The microbial succession was worked out in the 20th century.