Hard Sugar

Sugar and Chocolate

Confectionery
Prof. Dr. Özgül Evranuz
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Esra Çapanoğlu
Güven

Gummies
 The confectionery industry
Sugar confectionery refers to a large range of food items,
commonly known as sweets.
• Sugar confectionery, Sugar in boiled sugar syrups under
controlled crystal formation or prevention
• Chocolate confectionery, things made out of chocolate
• Sugar-free sugar confectionery, sugar confectionery
analogues which are made without any sugars
• Flour confectionery, items made out of flour
• Functional confectionery, confectionery with added health
benefit
• Chewing gum
 Nutritional significance

• The main ingredient used in the production of

sweets is sugar (sucrose) => High energy source
• If sweets are consumed in excess over a prolonged
period of time they may contribute to obesity.
• Unless good dental care is practiced, over-
consumption can also lead to tooth decay.
 Confectionery production: Science or Art?
• Confectionery products have traditionally been created
by skilled crafts-man confectioners working empirically
by trial and error.
• Scientific understanding of confectionery products has
been acquired retroactively. In many cases this empirical
knowledge was obtained before any scientific
understanding was available.
• In the eighteenth century, sugar confectionery products
were made by pharmacists as pleasant products because
the active pharmaceutical products were unpleasant. The
two industries continue to share some technology, such
as making sugar tablets and applying panned sugar
coatings.
Confectionery production: Science or Art?

Cough sweets = apparently confectionery but legally

medicines.

• However in the case of sugar-free sugar

confectionery or the functional confectionery the
product development stage has absorbed more
scientific effort than the rest of sugar confectionery
production methods.
Overview of ingredients in confectionery

• Sugars, sugar syrups, sugar substitıutes

• Fats and oils
• Milk and milk products
• Gelling agents, whipping agents, gums and
glazes
• Miscellaneous ingredients
Sugars, Sugar syrups, sugar substitutes
• Sucrose or saccharose; The term ‘sugar’ is often
used to describe sucrose. Extracted from sugar cane
or sugar beet. It is a disaccharide composed of
glucose and fructose. Different forms of sucrose:
granulated sugar, icing sugar, caster sugar, brown
sugar. Provide sweetness, flavor, color, bulk,
texture, preservation.
• Invert sugar; Obtained by the hydrolysis of sucrose.
It is a mixture of equal parts of glucose and
fructose. Acid or enzyme hydrolysis can be done. It
is commercially available as a syrup or partially
crystallized paste with a dry solids content of 65-
80%.
• Glucose; Also known as dextrose or grape sugar. Normally
produced industrially by an extensive hydrolysis of starch into
high conversion glucose syrup.
Spray-dried glucose syrup, dextrose monohydrate, dextrose
anhydrous and maltodextrin are products derived from glucose
syrup (corn syrup). It is used to prevent or control
crystallisation (graining) or act as humectant. The ultimate
choice depends upon the desired function.
• Honey, is essentially used for flavour purposes in
confectionery.
• Caramel: sucrose when heated under controlled conditions in
the presence of small quantities of acids, alkalis or salts, turns
into brown syrup known as caramel.

• Other "natural sweeteners" are available, but these are

variations of table sugar and contain about the same amount of
calories. These products include molasses, evaporated cane
juice, evaporated grape juice (pekmez).
Sugar substitutes

• Saccharin. It is 300 times sweeter than sugar. Because it has a good

shelf life, saccharin is used widely in fountain sodas, and its stability
at high temperatures makes it an option for sweetening baked goods,
unlike aspartame, which degrades when heated. Saccharin also is
favored economically because it can be made inexpensively.
• Aspartame is 180 times sweeter than sugar. It is used in products
such as beverages, breakfast cereals, desserts, and chewing gum, and
also as a tabletop sweetener.
• Acesulfame Potassium: First approved in 1988 as a tabletop
sweetener, acesulfame potassium, is now approved for products such
as baked goods, frozen desserts, candies, and, most recently,
beverages.
• Sucralose: Also known by its trade name, Splenda, sucralose is
600 times sweeter than sugar. FDA approved it in 1998 as a tabletop
sweetener and for use in products such as baked goods, nonalcoholic
beverages, chewing gum, frozen dairy desserts, fruit juices, and
gelatins. Later FDA amended its regulation to allow sucralose as a
general-purpose sweetener for all foods.
Sucralose cannot be digested, so it adds no calories to food. Because
sucralose is so much sweeter than sugar, it is bulked up with
maltodextrin, a starchy powder, so it will measure more like sugar. It
has good shelf life and doesn't degrade when exposed to heat.
Numerous studies have shown that sucralose does not affect blood
glucose levels, making it an option for diabetics.
• Sugar Alcohols: Though not technically considered
artificial sweeteners, sugar alcohols are slightly lower in
calories than sugar and do not promote tooth decay or
cause a sudden increase in blood glucose. They include
sorbitol, xylitol, lactitol, mannitol, and maltitol and are
used mainly to sweeten sugar-free candies, cookies, and
chewing gums.
Although the different sugar alcohols probably have different calorific
values, in Europe, for legislative purposes, they are regarded as having
2.4 kcal/ g (10 kJ/g).
HSH: hydrogenated starch hydrolysates
 Sucrose and Its Production
Sucrose (also known as saccharose) is produced
from both sugar beet and sugar cane. Both give the
same natural crystalline disaccharide material. It is
composed of two single sugars (monosaccharides).
These sugars, called glucose and fructose, are in
equal parts and can be separated by acidic
treatment or by using an enzyme called invertase.
The resulting mixture of the two sugars is called
invert sugar
C12H22O11 + H2O = C6H12O6 + C6H12O6
Sucrose + Water = Glucose + Fructose
Mol weight 342 18 180 180
Sucrose and Its Production
• Sugar cane has a sucrose content of 11-17%.
• The raw juice is squeezed from the crushed stalks, often using
roller mills.
• The remaining material can be used to make paper, cardboard or
hardboard etc.
• This juice contains more invert sugar than was the case with beet
sugar.
• This makes it more difficult to crystallize and a gentler treatment is
required to get rid of the impurities otherwise an undesirable
brown colour would form.
• Alternative treatments involve lower temperatures or the use of
sulfur dioxide.
• Hydrocyclones and bow-shaped sieves are used to clarify the
liquid and crystallization procedures are similar to those used for
beet sugar.
Sucrose and Its Production
• Sugar beet contains about 14-17% sucrose.
• The beet is cleaned and sliced and the sugar, together with some
mineral and organic impurities are washed out by warm water.
• Slaked lime is added to precipitate out these impurities and
carbon dioxide is then bubbled through the solution.
• This precipitates out the excess slaked lime as calcium carbonate.
• The solids are removed by filtration to give a 15% sugar solution,
which is then evaporated to 65-70%.
• Vacuum evaporation and centrifuges are then used to purify and
crystallize the sucrose.
• It is not possible to recover all the sugar in a single processing
stage and white sugar requires three or four different steps.
Figure 1: Sugar cane is a reed-like grass which grows to a height
of 5 - 9 m. The shoots can be seen to be divided into nodes and
internodes. They grow to a diameter of 7 cm and their medullary
cells in the soft interior of the stem accumulate large quantities
of raw sugar (photo from Kew Gardens, London).
Figure 2: Transporting sugar cane to the sugar factory, Cuba
Figure 3: Sugar beet
Figure 5: Sucanat (whole cane sugar) from the sugar-growing
island of Negros (Philippines). Sucanat is dried unrefined
sugar cane juice. The lumps which form during cooling are
regarded in the Philippines as a sign of genuine, traditionally
produced, high quality sugar.
Figure 6: White sugar made from sugar beet.
Figure 1: Colorful lump sugar from the Czech Republic
Figure 2: Brown (Milford Tee) sugar cubes made from raw
cane sugar: the cubes abrade easily and so tend become
"gritty".
Figure 3: Sugar cubes arranged in neat rows in their packaging
Figure 4: Sugar loaf
Starch derivatives
Starch can be hydrolysed into simpler carbohydrates by
acids, various enzymes, or a combination of the two. The
extent of conversion is typically quantified by dextrose
equivalency (DE), which is roughly the fraction of the
glycoside bonds in starch that have been broken.
Food products made in this way include:
• Maltodextrins, a lightly hydrolyzed (DE 10–20) starch
product used as a bland-tasting filler and thickener.
• Various corn syrups (DE 30–70), viscous solutions used
as sweeteners and thickeners in many kinds of processed
foods.
• Dextrose (DE 100), commercial glucose, prepared by
the complete hydrolysis of starch.
Corn syrups

➢The regular grade of 42 DE syrup

➢The higher-DE syrups (higher than 42 DE)
➢The low-DE syrups (less than 42 DE)

➢High fructose corn syrup, made by treating dextrose

solutions with the enzyme glucose isomerase, until a
substantial fraction of the glucose has been converted to
fructose. High fructose corn syrup has the same sweetness
as sugar.
 Characteristics of bulk sweeteners
• Nutritional: Energy
• Sensory properties: Sweetness, Flavour,
Texture, Appearance
• Physical functionalities: Solubility and
viscosity, Osmotic and vapour pressures,
Hygroscopicity/humectancy/water activity
• Microbiological properties: Preservation,
Fermentation
 Sweetness and flavor
• Empirical observations confirm that perceived sweetness
enhances many flavours in selected foods and beverages.
Their more important flavouring role is contributing to the
generation of flavour by caramelisation or through
participation in Maillard reactions. Caramel colours are
amorphous, brown materials resulting from the carefully
controlled heat treatment of sugars in the presence of small
quantities of acids, alkalis or salts. Caramel colours first
gaining commercial importance as additives to brewery
products. Main carbohydrates used in the manufacture of
caramels are glucose, invert sugar, malt syrups, sucrose and
high DE glucose syrups.
Table 2.1 Relative degree of sweetness of different sugars
and sugar alcohols Sugar Relative sweetness

Sucrose : 100
Fructose : 180
High fructose syrups: 105-130
Glucose: 60
Maltose : 50
Lactose : 15-30
Xylitol: 100
Maltitol: 65
Sorbitol: 60
Mannitol: 50
Isomalt : 45
• The characteristic property of all polyols is their
negative heat of solution which gives a cooling
sensation in the mouth.
• Polydextrose (a polysaccharide made up of several
sugars) gives a warming sensation when dissolved
in the saliva in the mouth. It also dries out the
mouth, sometimes making the chocolate harder to
swallow.
 Texture
• The textures of many food products are influenced by
soluble carbohydrates.
• Sucrose, in particular, contributes extensively to the
creation of a variety of familiar food textures, such as:
the crunchiness, the grittiness, the pastiness, the smooth
glass of hard boiled confectionery products, the light
alveolation of cakes, pectin gels in jams and jellies and
mouthfeel in syrups, sauces and beverages.
• Sucrose is therefore clearly an example of a multi-
functional ingredient.
 Solubility and viscosity
• The fact that the sugars are generally quite soluble
ingredients. However, when some food products are prepared
with high solids contents, especially when containing high
concentrations of sucrose, glucose or lactose, adequate
precautions need to be taken to prevent crystallisation
occurring.
• The viscosities of pure solutions of simple sugars are
Newtonian. This is of operational significance in the food
industry for the movement of liquid sugars, both into and out
of transport containers and within food and beverage
production facilities. Viscosity also plays an important role in
the regulation of crystallisation rate, particularly important in
hard-boiled confectionery products where the degree of
supersaturation can be so high that diffusion is severely
limited and crystallisation rates are correspondingly slowed.
 Colligative properties
• Collectively, the colligative properties of sugars influence
food preparation and stability to a greater extent than do
other sensory and functional properties.
• The presence of soluble carbohydrate molecules in
solution gives rise to osmotic and vapor pressure
phenomena which is demonstrated as the water activity or
equilibrium relative humidity (ERH) generated over
sugars in crystalline form or in solution. Sugars in
solution generate high osmotic pressures and this is the
major factor behind the use of sugars as preservatives in,
i.e., jams and jellies.
 Colligative properties (cont’d)
• Osmotic pressures generated are directly proportional to
the molecular concentration of sugars in solution and
this infers that smaller molecular weight sugars such as
the monosaccharides glucose and fructose, at equal
weight concentrations, are more effective than larger
molecular weight sugars such as the disaccharide
sucrose.
• Similarly, high DE glucose syrups are more effective
generators of osmotic pressure than low DE syrups.
 Colligative properties (cont’d)
• Boiling point elevation and freezing point depression are
influenced by the concentration of sugars in solution and
their molecular weight.
• In confectionery products, selection of the optimum blend
of sucrose, invert sugar and glucose syrup can lower the
boiling point of the mix significantly, thus leading to less
heat-induced browning and also potentially a cheaper
product due to lower energy utilization.
• In contrast, in the formulation of ice creams and frozen
desserts, lower DE glucose syrups are often preferred so as
to minimize the depression of freezing point in these
products
 Hygroscopicity, humectancy and water activity
• A key property of small molecular weight carbohydrates is
their ability to tie up water. A humectant is defined as an
ingredient that has the ability to resist changes in moisture
content, and hygroscopicity is the property of absorbing
water from the atmosphere.
• Smaller molecular weight sugars of higher solubilities are
more effective humectants.
• The impact of sugars on water activity can be very complex.
For example, a 44 Brix sucrose solution (containing 56%
water) has the same aw (0.80) as a starch/water mixture
with a water content of only 20%. This explains why one
major food use for sucrose is in food preservation.
 Other properties
• Different carbohydrates exert varying effects on the sugar-acid-
high methoxy pectin ratios used in the manufacture of jams and
preserves.
• Glucose and maltose enhance gelling properties whereas longer
chain oligosaccharides interrupt pectin networks, thus having a
detrimental effect on gel formation.
• Careful selection of glucose syrups can help to ensure that the
resulting product will have enhanced stability against gel syneresis,
thus explaining the selection of high maltose glucose syrups in jam
and preserve manufacture.
• In contrast, low DE glucose syrups are more suitable for products
such as instant whips, dream toppings and other foamed
confections. These low DE syrups are able to entrap air, thus
stabilizing foam networks.
Fats and oils

• A variety of edible fats and oils are used in

confectionery products. For example, milk fat,
cocoa butter, and oils of palm kernel, groundnut,
coconut and soya.
• Many of these can undergo hydrogenation to
produce fats of varying hardness.
• Vegetable fats are used in great quantities for
manufacture of caramels, fudges, pralines, truffles,
pastes, biscuits, biscuit fillings and as cocoa butter
equivalents in chocolate.
 Milk and milk products

• Milk fat, butter and butter fat are used commonly in

products such as caramels, pralines, toffee and fudge
to provide colour, flavour and texture.
• Condensed milk and whey are an alternative means of
introducing milk solids into confectionery.
• Dried milk powders will often be used as substitutes
for sweetened condensed milks.
• Whole milk can be incorporated into milk chocolate
via the crumb method of chocolate manufacture.
Gelling agents, whipping agents, gums and glazes
• Gelling ingredients: Starch from wheat, tapioca, potato
and maize, gelatin, pectins and agar agar.
• Whipping agents help to hold air in a product. This is an
essential feature of marshmallows, some chocolate
centres and frappes. The common whipping agents are
egg albumen, gelatine, casein and soy protein.
• Gums, include locust bean gum (carob gum) and guar
gum. They are useful in starch gels to prevent cracking
and shrinking.
• Common glazes, particularly for panned sweets or
dragees, are shellac, beeswax and carnuba wax. Make
suface of the product shiny and prevents lumping.
 Miscellaneous ingredients
• Nuts (almonds, brazil, cashew, hazelnuts, coconut,
peanut or walnuts) and dried fruits (cherries, dates,
sultanas, currants and raisins) all add colour, flavour and
textural interest to confectionery.
• Flavourings are essential oils and essences, such as
vanillin, and wide ranges of natural, nature identical and
synthetic flavours.
• Colours are available in both a synthetic and purely
natural form.
• Common acids for confectionery products are citric,
tartaric, malic, acetic, benzoic and sorbic. Some act as
preservatives as well as having acidulant properties,
while others are used solely to lift or complement any
fruit flavours that are present.
Production of Confectionery Products
 Types of sugar cofectionery
• Each operation has important influences on the type of product
produced. The process defines the final produc or vice versa.

• Crystalline
• Amorphous or noncrystalline candies: 93-95% sucrose
• Chewy Amorphous: Caramels and taffies
• Hard Amorphous: Brittles
• Gummy Amorphous: aerated marshmallows
and gumdrops
Factors affecting the production of sugar
confectionery
The type of product produced varies with the
conditions and the methods utilized during the
application of each operation. The process defines the
final product or the final product defines the process.
The variables are:
– the time and temperature of boiling
– the residual moisture content in the confectionery
– sugar type
– the degree of sucrose inversion
– the addition of other ingredients
– rate of cooling
– aeration
 Added ingredients
• The addition of certain ingredients can affect the
temperature of boiling. For example, if liquid milk
is used in the production of toffees, the moisture
content of the mixture immediately increases,
and will therefore require a longer boiling time in
order to reach the desired moisture content.
• Added ingredients also have an effect on the
shelf-life of the sweet. Toffees, caramels, and
fudges, which contain milk-solids and fat, have a
higher viscosity, which controls crystallization.
• On the other hand, the use of fats may make the
sweet prone to rancidity, and consequently the
shelf-life will be shortened.
Moisture content
• The water left in the sweet will influence its
storage behaviour and determine whether the
product will dry out, or pick up, moisture.
• For sweets which contain more than 4 % moisture,
it is likely that sucrose will crystallize during
storage. The surface of the sweet will absorb
water, the sucrose solution will subsequently
weaken, and crystallization will occur at the
surface - later spreading throughout the sweet.
Degree of inversion
• Sweets containing high concentrations of sugar (sucrose) may
crystallize either during manufacture or on storage (graining).
Although this may be desirable for certain products (such as fondant
and fudge), in most other cases it is seen as a quality defect.
• Invert sugar inhibits sucrose crystallization and increases the overall
concentration of sugars in the mixture.
• Natural process of inversion: It is difficult to accurately assess the
degree of invert sugar that will be produced. Too much may make
the sweet prone to take up water from the air and become sticky.
Too little will be insufficient to prevent crystallization of the
sucrose. About 10-15 per cent of invert sugar is the amount required
to give a non-crystalline product
• As a way of controlling the amount of inversion, certain ingredients,
such as cream of tartar or citric acid, may be used (to accelerate the
breakdown of sucrose into invert sugar). A more accurate method of
ensuring the correct balance of invert sugar is to add glucose syrup,
as this will directly increase the proportion of invert sugar in the
mixture.
 Beating and Forming/setting
• Beating:A process which controls the process of
crystallization and produces crystals of a small size.
For example in the production of fudge, the mass is
poured onto the table, left to cool, and then beaten with
a wood or metal beater.
• Forming/setting:There are two main ways of forming
sweets: cutting into pieces, or setting in moulds.
Moulds may be as simple as a greased and lined tray.
Other moulds can be made from rubber, plastic, metal,
starch, or wood. It is possible to make starch moulds
by preparing a tray of cornstarch (cornflour), not
packed too tightly. Impressions are then made in the
starch using wooden shapes. The mixture is poured
into the impressions and allowed to set.
 Packaging
• When sweets are stored without proper packaging,
especially in areas of high humidity, the sucrose may
crystallize, making the sweet sticky and grainy.
Individual wraps can be made from waxed paper,
aluminium foil, and cellulose film, or a combination
of these. For further protection, the individually-
wrapped sweets may be packed in a heat-sealed
polythene bag.
• Sweets can also be packaged in glass jars, or tins with
close fitting lids.
Factors affecting shelf-life
Product composition
• The shelf-stability of confectionery products, as in the case of all food
products,is governed by their composition.
• Although the high level of sugar in these products imparts significant
microbial stability in most cases, microbial spoilage can occur if the
products contain ingredients that are prone to microbial spoilage.
• The presence of other ingredients, such as fats, will make the product
prone to chemical and physical changes.
• Since the presence of sucrose or other sugars is common to all
standard confectionery products, some deterioration related to the
changed state of the sugars can be considered as a common problem
occurring in most confectionery products. The stability of some
confectionery products is directly related to the stability of particular
ingredients in the products. An example of such ingredients is lactose,
which when incorporated into confectionery, can cause the premature
crystallization and graining of products such as toffee.
There are, of course, many ingredients that are added to
confectionery products to increase their stability.
Examples of such ingredients include;
• antioxidants to minimize oxidation,
• humectants to retain moisture, and
• emulsifiers to reduce separation of water and oil from
products.
 Chocolate manufacture

• Chocolate Ingredients
cocoa paste, cocoa butter, sugar and milk, others
• Cocoa beans
• To be called chocolate, a product must contain cocoa.
• There are three types of cocoa.
Criollo has beans with white cotyledons and a mild
favour.
Most cocoa is Forastero, which is more vigorous and
often grown in West Africa
Trinitario, is usually thought to be a hybrid of the other
two types.
 Cocoa Pods
Cocoa beans are the seeds, contained in a
cucumber-like fruit, of the cacao tree. It takes 5-6
months to develop into mature pods between 100 and
350 mm long. Their weight ranges from 200 g to more
than 1 kg and they exist in a wide variety of shapes and
colours depending upon variety. Each pod contains
some 30-45 beans.
The pods are opened with a machete or cracked with a
wooden club.The beans are oval in shape and covered in
a white pulp (mucilage). The beans are separated from
the majority of this pulp by hand.
The moisture content of the bean at this stage is about
65%.
 Cocoa Beans
• The cocoa bean consists of the seed coat which
encloses the cocoa kernel and almost solely
consists of the two folded cotyledons, and the
radicle. The cocoa kernel is the principal
component for the production of cocoa products.
Two subtypes are distinguished:
• High-grade, criollo cocoa: the beans are large, roundish
and brown in color. They have a delicately bitter, aromatic
flavor and are easily processed.
• Forastero or common grade cocoa: the beans are smaller
than criollo cocoa beans, flattened on the side, have a
dark reddish-brown to violet color and a sharper flavor.
Forastero cocoa beans account for around 90% of the
world's cocoa harvest.
The flavour of the cocoa depends not only on the cocoa
type, e.g. whether it is Criollo or Forastero, but also
upon the climate and soil conditions etc.
In addition to the flavour of the beans, the fat contained
within it also changes according to the area of
production. In general the nearer the equator that the
tree is grown the softer is the fat, i.e. the easier it is to
melt. This means that Malaysian cocoa butter is
relatively hard, whereas most Brazilian cocoa butter is
much softer.
A pod-bearing cacao tree...
The small pods or cherelles growing on trunk of a
cocoa tree
Cocoa pods being gathered by a long pole
The pods are split to release the seeds...
Ghanian women transporting ripe pods
Cocoa beans are the seeds, contained in a cucumber-like fruit, of the
cacao tree. The yellowish, reddish to brownish fruits (botanically
speaking, berries), are divided into five longitudinal compartments, each
containing up to 10 seeds (cocoa beans). As the fruits approach ripeness,
the partitions break down and the seeds are located around the central
funicle in a whitish pulp with a sweet/sour flavor.
Cacao seeds with pulp
Figure 4: Husk of the cacao fruit, outside view (left) and inside
view (right)
Figure 5: Cocoa beans consist of the seed coat which encloses
the cocoa kernel and almost solely consists of the two folded
cotyledons, and the radicle. The cocoa kernel is the principal
component for the production of cocoa products.
 Fermentation
Correct fermentation is essential to produce a good
flavour in the final chocolate. It is a process in
which the bean is killed, so that it can not be
spoiled by germination. In addition certain
chemicals are formed, which upon heating give
the taste of cocoa.
There are two main types of method: heap and
box fermentation.
Heap fermentation: Between 25 and 2500 kg of fresh beans,
together with a small amount of the white pulp, are placed
in a heap and then covered with banana leaves. The process
normally lasts from 5 to 6 days, with the actual length being
determined by experience. Some farmers turn the beans
after 2 or 3 days.The smaller heaps often produce the better
favours.
Box fermentation: The wooden boxes may hold between 1
and 2 tonnes of beans. These may be 250-500 mm or up to
a metre deep. Shallower ones often give a better favour due
to the improved ventilation. The beans are tipped from one
box to another each day to increase aeration and give a
more uniform treatment. Usually the fermentation period is
similar to that for the heap procedure.
Heap method of fermentation
Cocoa beans being fermented under banana leaves
A box fermenter...
Cocoa beans being fermented in boxes
 Changes during fermentation
During the fermentation, the temperature rises
dramatically during the early stages and three days of
heat are thought to be sufficient to kill the bean.
Following its death, enzymes are released. These cause
the rapid decomposition of the beans’ food reserves
and form sugars and acids, which are the precursors of
the chocolate favour.
The proteins and peptides react with polyphenols to give
the brown colour associated with cocoa, whilst other
flavour precursors are formed by reactions between
sucrose and proteins. Of particular importance is the
formation of amino acids.
 Drying

Following fermentation the beans must be dried to 7-

8% moisture level before they can be transported to
the chocolate making factories. Failure to do this will
result in moulds growing on the beans. These give
the chocolate a strong nasty flavour and so can not
be used.
Where the weather permits, the beans are usually sun
dried. Beans must also not be over-dried. Those with
a moisture content of less than 6% become very
brittle, which makes subsequent handling and
processing much more difficult.
Sun drying of cacao beans
Cocoa beans being dried on moveable tables
 Storage and Transport

The beans must be stored so that they do not pick up

water, as they will become mouldy once their
moisture level rises above 8%.
They are stored in 60-65 kg jute sacks. These are
strong, stackable and allow the moisture to pass
through. They are also biodegradable. As chocolate
is a very delicate flavour, the beans must also be
stored well away from other goods such as spices,
which might result in off flavours in the chocolate.
Jute bags of cacao beans ready for shipment
 Terminology: cocoa bean processing
• winnowing: removal of the shells after breaking
• nib: cocoa kernel remained after shelling
• cocoa mass/liquor: the product obtained by grinding the nib.The
finess of the mass must be such thar no grittiness will be felt in
the mouth when tasted. The finer the mass the more fluid the
mass is.
• alkalization: treatment of nib, mass, cake or powder with an
alkali. Effects are: taste changes, solubility improves and a range
of color can be obtained depending on the type and concentration
of the alkali, and time and temperature of alkalization
• Cocoa butter: the fat of the cocoa bean
• Cocoa powder: cocoa mass is pressed to obtain cocoa butter. The
press cake may contain 10-20% cocoa butter. Press cake is
ground to obtain the cocoa powder.
Fig. 2. Cocoa seed processing
 Chocolate manufacturing
• refining to reduce the size of the particles
• conching (stirring) to produce a smooth and
glossy chocolate
• tempering (heating at 45°C) to produce an
even smoother end product
• moulding the chocolate into shape, before it
is finally packaged.