Resumen

ORTIZ DE BERTORELLI, Ligia; GRAZIANI DE FARINAS, Lucía  y  GERVAISE, Rovedas L. Evaluation of some chemical characteristics of cocoa beans in fermentation ¹. Agronomía Trop. [online]. 2009, vol.59, n.1, pp.73-79. ISSN 0002-192X.

Cacao fruits of the criollo and forastero types from Cumboto (Aragua), recently harvested (AM1) and fruits which had 5 days after harvest were fermented without moving (SR) the fermentating mass (seeds and pulp) at whole, and moving it every 24 and 28 hours in order to evaluate how these treatments affect the chemical characteristics of the beans. The moisture content, pH, total tritable acidity, proteins and tannins contents were measured on pulp, grains and grain cotyledons. According to the results, the storage of the fruits induced a reduction of the moisture content and acidity and an increase in the content of tannins, whereas its effect on the proteins content was variable. The movement of the fermentating mass also affected the chemical characteristics of the beans; for both types of cacaos there was a reductions in the moisture content, acidity and content of tannins, while the pH and content of proteins was increased. However, there was not variations in the evaluated parameters due to the frequency of mass movement. The composition of the two fractions of beans showed significant differences (P≤0.05); the pulp of both cacaos exhibited the highest values of moisture content and pH, and the cotyledon of the forastero cacao the lowest acidity and the highest content of tannin. As a conclusion the chemical characteristics of fermentating beans were affected by fruit storage and by the frequency of movement of the fermentating mass.

Palabras clave : Theobroma cacao L; cocoa; turning time; storage cocoa fruits; fermentation; chemical charac­teristics.