Cocoa bean pretreatment

The yield of cocoa nibs largely depends on the pretreatment of the cocoa beans before winnowing. Traditional predrying results in high water loss and thus embrittlement of the cocoa beans. On the other hand, with infrared pre-treatment water loss is minimized.

The minimized loss of water keeps the cell structure of the beans flexible, so that the particle size spectrum of the nibs is shifted to larger values during the following crushing process of the beans. As a result, the shell-nibs separation is more efficient, resulting in an increased yield.

Due to the infrared radiation and its specific wavelength, the water molecules between the shell and the surface of the beans are suddenly stimulated and forced to evaporate. This causes a sharp increase in pressure in this area and the shell detaches and bursts.