Resumen

ORTIZ DE BERTORELLI, Ligia; ROVEDAS L, Gervaise  y  GRAZIANI DE FARINAS, Lucía. Influence of several factors on physical indexes of cocoa seeds in fermentation ¹. Agronomía Trop. [online]. 2009, vol.59, n.1, pp.81-88. ISSN 0002-192X.

This study was carried out to evaluate the effect of fermentation time, cacao type, fruit storage and turning time on some physical indexes of the bean during the fermentation process. Fruits of the types criollo and foras­tero from Cumboto (Aragua) were fermented freshly harvested (AM1) and 5 days after harvesting (AM2). Fermentation was done in wooden boxes for 5 days with turning times of 24 and 48 hours as well as no movement of fermentating mass (SR) at whole. The fermentation temperature was measured in a daily base and the indexes of fermentation (IF) and of swelling (IH) were measured at 0, 2 and 5 days after the beginning of the fermentation process. The results shown that during the fermentation process the temperature increased and reached its maximum value at the second day and then it decreased to values close to ambient temperature. The fermentation and swelling indexes also increased, reaching a maximum on day 5. Related to the type of cacao and storage treatment, we found that the highest temperatures as well as the highest values of IF and IH corresponded to the criollo variety and to the AM2 storage treatment. Related to the turning time, only significant differences (P≤0.05) were found for the IH index value, with the highest value where there were not movement during the fermentation process. In conclusion, the factors evaluated in this work influenced the fermentation process, and the storage of the beans before fermentation induced a faster fermentation process.

Palabras clave : Theobroma cacao L; turning time; storage cocoa fruits; fermentation temperature; physical indexes.