The cut test and shell content of dried cocoa beans and sensory evaluation
of chocolates were performed as described by Ho et al. (2014) to
compare the quality of cocoa beans obtained from fermentations in the
presence and absence of bacterial inhibitors. Briefly, the beans (30 for
each sample) were cut lengthwise from the middle, and each half of
the beans was visually inspected and classified based on their color
and defects. The shell content (20 beans for each sample) was calculated
as the percentage of shell weight relative to the whole bean weight.
Chocolates were prepared by roasting and grinding dried, fermented
beans (50%) into cocoa liquor before adding cocoa butter (20%) and
icing sugar (30%), followed by conching for at least 6 h and tempering.
Chocolates were evaluated for sensory quality using the liking test
which asked panelists (30 for each sample) to evaluate color, flavor
and overall acceptability of two coded samples of chocolate by giving
scores in a seven-point hedonic scale. One of the samples was prepared
from beans fermented in the absence of bacterial inhibitors
and the other was from beans fermented with bacterial inhibitors
(nisin/nisin + lysozyme).