2. Materials and methods
2.1. Sample preparation
Fresh cocoa beans were obtained from Jengka, Pahang and fermented using wooden boxes for five days. The fermenting mass
weighed about 25 kg based on the fresh beans weight using box
dimension measuring 30.5 cm30.5 cm30.5 cm as used byHii
and Tukimon, (2002). The beans were turned every 48 h to ensure
uniformity during fermentation.
2.2. Drying procedure
The fermented beans (about 700 g) were dried using an air-ventilated oven (Memmert, DO6836, Germany) at temperature of 60,
70 and 80C with natural convective airflow of 0.01 m/s (Fig. 1).
The relative humidity was 6%, 4.7% and 2.9% at these temperatures,
respectively. The beans were spread thinly in single layer (about
1.05 cm thick) on a meshed sample tray with square openings
measuring 0.40.4 cm. Heat was generated by the heater integrated into the walls of the oven and the distributor fan was not
switched on in order to simulate the natural convective environment of the commercial cocoa dryer. The exhaust air escaped
through a ventilation hole (diameter = 4 cm) at the back of the
oven. Drying was conducted for 8 h daily and the beans were let
tempered at room temperature overnight. The purpose of this step
is for the moisture within the beans to redistribute from the internal to the outer layer of the beans (testa) because the testa will
generally dry faster than the cotyledon layer in hot air drying. Drying was terminated when the moisture content of the beans
reached 7.5% wet basis. The experiment at each drying temperature was conducted in three replicates.