Comparative study of the Physical Quality of Dried Cocoa beans from different drying methods in terms of Appearance, Structural Features, Shelf life and other Defects

This research was conducted to investigate the effect of drying methods on the drying properties on the quality of cocoa beans in Agricultural Engineering Department, Njala University, and Njala Campus, Sierra Leone. The pods were divided into 8 parts, 53 pods per sample and depodded. Four samples were washed and four unwashed from the 53 pods and fermented with box methods. Also, from these samples, four were solar dried and four sun dried. All samples were labelled with randomization, Samples A, D, F and H were solar dried while Samples B, C, E and G sun dried. Furthermore, laboratory investigations: pH test, sucrose test, bulk density, cutting test, physical properties and sensory evaluation: colour, taste, texture, aroma and grade were evaluated. Sensory evaluation revealed that washed beans scored 70% chocolate colour for both drying methods, 80% aroma, 90% texture for all washed beans. When graded, solar dried beans scored 70% of grade 1 while sun dried scored 80% of grade 1. Also, the weight of unwashed solar dried beans recorded 9.61 kg while sun dried beans scored 10.09 kg. The pH of all washed beans were high with maximum value of 7.3 and the sucrose content of unwashed was reported high as 0.405% in box fermented beans.