Study on effect of fermentation to the quality parameter of cocoa bean in Indonesia

Most cocoa beans in Indonesia are traditionally produced by farmers using non fermented and sun drying method. The quality of cocoa beans produced by farmer in yogyakarta may be improved by the fermentation method. However, it needs optimization for best fermentation process. The aims of the study was to improve quality of cocoa bans by fermentation of sun dried cocoa beans. The characteric fermented cocoa beans was determined by maesuring changes pH, acidity and fermentation indexs of cocoa beans during fermentation. This study used preconditioned cocoa beans to resamble obtain from the farmer. Preconditioning was done in order to get 15% mouisture content of pulp at same level as moisture content of pulp from traditional process. Before fermentation, therefor sun dried cocoa beans was rehydrated to obtain a moisture content of pulp similiar to fresh beans pulp, and then fermentation was conducted for 120 hours. Changes in acidity and fermentation indexs of cocoa beans during fermentation were measured. The fermentation process used 3 level treatment i.e. control (without inoculum), mixed culture of microbies added at the begining fermentation. The result show all cocoa beans acidity increase during fermentation from 4, 48% to 6, 45% for control, 4, 64% to 6, 39% for addition of inoculum at begining of fermentation and from 4, 45% to 6, 59% for addition of inoculum at the begining and midle of fermentation and fermentation indexs of cocoa beans increase for all level of inoculum addition i.e. 0, 31 to 0, 88 for control, 0, 32 to 0, 99 for addition of inoculum at the beginning fermentation and 0, 33 to 1, 03 for addition of inoculum at the beginning and midle of fermentation. The study indicated that addition of mix culture microbies in fermetation improved the quality of cocoa beans that characterized by pH, acidity and fermentation indexs of cocoa beans.