Are you a fan of CHOCOLATE?? How about cacao nibs or cocoa beans? Do you ever wonder where they come from or how they are produced? Well, this week, I am going to walk you through our process for producing cocoa beans (aka cacao beans) here at Cold River Homestead!
Costa Rica has an ideal climate for production of this delicious fruit, and we grow quite a bit of it on our four trees.
It produces nearly year-round, but we predominantly harvest cacao during the warm summer months, since it is ideally solar dried for best quality.
Costa Rica’s bounty of insects!
Yes, living in the rainforest brings its share of insects (and some of them can get BIG), but amazingly some of people’s least favorites are critically important to the production of cacao and thus cocoa beans.
I am talking about biting midges (aka no-see-ums where I come from). These vicious, tiny biting flies, along with gall midges, are the principal pollinators of our much loved cacao trees!1 That means without these tiny flies (only around 1 to 3 millimeters in length), we wouldn’t have chocolate!!!2
Such tiny flowers for such gigantic fruit, huh?
Producing Cacao for Delicious Cocoa Beans
One common question we get asked is how we know when the cacao pods are ready to pick. Well, when you scratch the skin of the cacao pod, the exposed surface should look pale green to yellow. We then use clippers to cut the pods off the tree. They can get pretty big!
We find that we can save the cacao pods over several days, but the pods are fairly perishable and should be processed within a few days of picking. Once we have collected our pods, it is time to crack them open!
To do this, we either use a machete or sharp knife to pierce the skin (around the fat middle point of the fruit) and then break them open by hand, so that we do not damage the beans inside the pods. The cocoa beans are then scooped out of the pods by hand and collected in a bowl.
Time to ferment!
Next up, we need to initiate the fermentation! We take two approaches to aid this. First, we stir in a little bit of bread yeast into the beans. Second, we wrap our fermentation vessel in the lighter (under) side of banana leaves. Reportedly, this part of the banana leaves can aid in the initiation of fermentation for cacao. We tend to use a large cooler with the bean side wrapped in banana leaf alongside a hot water bottle, which we change 2 to 3 times per day. Our goal is to keep the temperatures around 90 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit (32 and 38 Celsius).
Over the first few days, the fermenting beans will release liquid. (You could drink this sweet nectar if you like!) However, it should be removed from the fermentation, so that the conditions don’t get too wet.
Also, be sure to stir it daily. We use our hands for this, so we can ensure we get a good mix. The first few days the beans will smell fruity, but afterward, there will be a distinct smell of alcohol. Fermentation is under way!
After about a week of fermentation, the sweet, white, fleshier outer part of the bean will ferment away, leaving a darkening bean. We then check the progress by cutting a bean open. We are looking for the dark purple interior of the bean to lighten to a light purple color and to see spacing between the folds of the bean.
Solar Time for the Cocoa Beans!
When fermentation is complete, the cocoa beans need to then begin a slow drying time. Don’t try to rush this! Drying the beans too quickly will result in a bitter, acrid… and, well, gross product. The drying should go nice and slooooooowwwww!
We live in the mountains at an elevation of around 2460 feet above sea level, and so our temps don’t get as warm as those who live closer to the coast. In our climate, we place the beans on a large mesh table with good air circulation during the day when the sun is out. In the afternoon (or heavy clouds or rain), we transfer the beans to a plastic bag and bring them inside. We find that if we leave the beans out overnight, they rehydrate and can be susceptible to mold.
How long does this drying process take? Well, it depends on the sun. However, it can take around 6 weeks of daily solar drying where we live!
Each day, as the drying continues, we are checking for the shells of the cocoa beans to begin to split. We also taste along the way to check that they are completely dry and crispy without being chewy. Once we have nicely dried beans, we are ready to move to the next step!
Raw or Toasted?
Now, if you are looking for raw cacao/ cocoa beans, you can skip this section and move to the next!
However, we like to have our cocoa beans toasted, as we prefer that flavor.
To toast our cocoa beans, we prefer to use a skillet (either over a gas flame or electric) with constant stirring, so that we can get even toasting of the cocoa beans. We fluctuate our toasting temperature between 250 to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on how they are toasting. The smell of the beans will start out yeasty but will transition to closer to chocolate brownies! Yum! This takes around 15 minutes. Some of the cocoa beans will also pop (similar to the sound of toasting nuts), and this is normal. Feel free to taste along the way until you are happy with the degree of toasting.
Time to Peel our Cocoa Beans!
Now comes my most FAVORITE part of the whole process! (Yes, that is sarcasm for those that were wondering.)
It is time to peel the cocoa beans. If you toasted the beans, this process is a bit easier than if you didn’t, but either way, this is NOT the easiest part of the process.
Some of the cocoa beans will have split open, and these are the easy ones to peel. For those beans that haven’t split open, we will need to find a way to break open that shell.
Pin it now to save it for later!
Some people crush the entire bean in its shell and then direct a fan (or hair dryer) to “winnow” the beans, which basically refers to having the lighter weight shells blow away while leaving the “meat” or inner part of the bean behind. The product is cacao nibs, which are just crushed cacao/ cocoa beans with their shells removed.
However, we aren’t a fan of this process, as it has a large failure rate. The amount of air that you use to blow away the shells and leave the nibs has to be calibrated, and often times you are left with a large percent of shells still in your product (or cacao nibs that blow away). Incidentally, the chocolate industry also finds that it is practically unavoidable to separate the shells away from the cocoa beans in the finished product. However, it is generally accepted in the industry that the maximum percent of shells should be limited to 5% in the final product3.
So what do we do? We use a pocket knife to pry each one apart. You can kind of get into a rhythm of it (and if you get hungry, you can always snack on a cocoa bean or two). If we don’t finish it that day, we place the remaining beans in the fridge for shelling the next day.
When we’re done with the shelling that day or for that batch, we store our shelled cocoa beans in the fridge.
Time to Enjoy the Cocoa Beans!
Now that you have your cocoa beans peeled and ready, how will you enjoy them?
We often eat ours in a trail mix with nuts and dried fruits or put them in overnight oats (check out my banana overnight oats recipe here) or other desserts… or just munch on them as is!
Or sometimes we process them all the way to homemade rustic CHOCOLATE by crushing the cocoa beans and blending with a little sugar and cocoa butter or coconut oil! Then we pour the mixture into silicone disc molds and let set. Yum!!
Check out our two part short video series on how we produce cocoa beans!
Part one of the series:
And part two!
Did you know you can find this as well as my other pins on Pinterest?
- The Conversation (2021) Tiny cacao flowers and fickle midges are part of a pollination puzzle that limits chocolate production. Available at: https://theconversation.com/tiny-cacao-flowers-and-fickle-midges-are-part-of-a-pollination-puzzle-that-limits-chocolate-production-154334 ↩︎
- Osterloff, E. (no date) Flies are saving your chocolate cravings. Available at: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/flies-are-saving-your-chocolate-cravings.html#:~:text=The%20midges%20maintaining%20cocoa%20crops&text=These%20flies%20are%20primary%20pollinators,in%20pollinating%20the%20tree%27s%20flowers. ↩︎
- Cain, N., Alka, O., Segelke, T., von Wuthenau, K., Kohlbacher, O., Fischer, M. (2019). “Food fingerprinting: Mass spectrometric determination of the cocoa shell content (Theobroma cacao L.) in cocoa products by HPLC-QTOF-MS”, Food Chemistry, 298, article number 125013. Available at:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030881461931115X ↩︎
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