Disintegrating extraction process to recover cocoa butter and cocoa - from cocoa beans free from shell fragments and noxious substances

摘要

Continuous disintegration of cocoa beans by cleaning, breaking, heating and pressing of the beans by (a) removing the shell component directly after crushing the beans (b) subdividing the heating into (i) a pre-roasting, during which the material being treated is pre-roasted, at the smallest possible spectrum of temperature and residence time which can be achieved by simultaneously controllable dried hot air heating and sectionally adjustable steam jacket indirect heating, as well as by special transport equipment for opening up the material and mixing only transversely to the direction of transport, to an extent such that it is completely roasted after pressing without under-or over-roasting, and (ii) a subsequent pre-treatment for pressing during which moisture, temperature and throughput of the material is adjusted exactly to the value most favourable for the subsequent pressing (c) carrying out the pressing with the smallest possible spectrum of temperature and residence time for the optimum mechanical exclusion of cocoa bean fracture and the separation of cocoa butter from the solid, by use of a screw press with an above normal ratio of screw length to diameter. Permits the continuous process to give as good a quality and yield of products e.g. cocoa and cocoa butter as the usual batch process.