From origin of South and Central America and very common there, it has been introduced in nearly every country of tropical zone.
The cocoa tree (ko-ko-a) is the Theobroma cacao where theobroma means food of the gods.
The tree is about 4 to 6 meter high.
The tree produces fruits since its 4th. year.
The fruit of the cocoa tree is like a cucumber with 10 furrows lengthways.
A fruit weights about 300 to 500 grams. The fresh seed represents about 25% of the fruit total weight.
The trade seed weights only 35 to 40% compared to the fresh seed.

The fruit when coming to maturity has a colour varying from yellow to orange or even vermilion red. The internal part, protected by a hard and thick husk, is made in 5 cells of which the walls are destroyed at maturity to form a soft pulp surrounding 25 to 40 seeds or beans, in 5 lengthwise rows.

The beans, dried to 6-8% moisture, contain 50 to 57% of a yellowish fat, which melts between 30 and 34°C and is called cocoa butter. It is in fact a by-product of the cocoa powder fabrication. The cocoa powder is made from the bean, which is slightly roasted, deoiled and finely grinded.

• 39-43% of oleic acid
  
• 23-25% of palmitic acid
  
• 31-35% of stearic acid
  
• melting point : 32-36°C
  
• unsaponifiables : 0.2 to 1%
  
• iodine value : 35-40
  
• saponification value : 192-200
  
• titer : 45-51°C

End uses

Cocoa butter is used in chocolate, in cookies and for the beauty products.

Process

The extraction of the cocoa butter is made in the following manner :
Cracking – Flaking - Heating/Cooking - Prepress giving either cakes at 12 or at 23% .


The cakes will either pass through only a disc grinder or through a disc grinder followed by a corrugated roller mill, a cooker and a flaker before entering the solvent extraction.
It gives the deoiled grinded meal that is used for cocoa powder fabrication.

For the rich cakes passing through the 2nd. cooker, the heating forms formic acid which is very aggressive in extraction plant equipments and special care in design should avoid risk of corrosion.

Cocoa butter can be bleached and deodorised. It is of non-siccative type.

De Smet did new developments in cocoa butter refining

It appears that there is an increasing amount of « poor » quality crude cocoa butter :
*High FFA, high non-hydratable phosphatides, high Fe
*High alkalinity, dark color (difficult to bleach)
*Too high PAH content (in case of oven drying)

Known problems with deodorizer distillate
*Related to caffein/theobromin in crude cocoa butter
*Depending on deodorizing conditions
*Sublimation of caffein/theo- bromin in vacuum ducts

New De Smet Cobustrip^® process

Silica pretreatment
*Silica(0.05-0.1%), temperature of 80°C under atmospheric pressure
*Adsorption of alkaline components, phosphatides, impurities
*Can replace the conventional polish filtratrion step.
*Addition of activated carbon to remove heavy PAH.

Bleaching (for special applications only)
*Acid activated bleaching earth (+-1%),temperature of 95°C under reduced pressure
*Required in case of white cocoa butter production.

Cobustrip^® Deodorising/Stripping
*Applied on filtered or pretreated cocoa butter
*Short residence time allows higher process temperature (200-220°C)
*Efficient stripping of high FFA cocoa butter.
*Partial deodorisation – no negative effect on crystallisation properties

*Complete deodorisation in classical tray type deodoriser:
For special applications, longer residence time at lower temperature (160-180°C) for fully bland taste.

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