The process of producing cocoa butter and cocoa powder from cocoa beans mainly includes the following key steps, as follows:

I. Pretreatment stage

1. Picking and fermentation: Pick mature cocoa beans, pile them for fermentation (usually 5-7 days), and enhance the flavor and reduce bitter substances through the action of microorganisms.

2. Drying: After fermentation, dry or dry them to reduce the moisture content to below 6%, which is convenient for storage and subsequent processing.

II. Cocoa bean processing stage

1. Cleaning and baking: Remove impurities, bake at 120-150℃ to stimulate aroma and make the bean shells brittle.

2. Shelling and crushing: After baking, grind and crush to separate cocoa beans (cocoa nibs) and bean shells.

III. Cocoa liquor preparation

Grind the cocoa nibs into a fine pulp - cocoa liquor (containing about 50% cocoa butter, with both aroma and bitterness), which is the intermediate raw material for producing cocoa butter and cocoa powder.

IV. Cocoa butter extraction

1. Pressing and separation: Heat the cocoa mass to 50-70℃, squeeze it through a hydraulic press or a screw press to separate the liquid cocoa butter (light yellow with a unique aroma) and the solid cocoa cake.

2. Refining (optional): If food-grade high-purity cocoa butter is required, it can be refined by deacidification, decolorization, deodorization and other refining treatments.

V. Cocoa powder production

1. Crushing and grinding: Crushing the cocoa cake (solid matter after pressing), sieving to remove crude fiber, and obtaining cocoa powder crude product.

2. Alkalization treatment (alkalized cocoa powder): Add edible alkali (such as sodium carbonate) to adjust the pH value, improve the color (deepen) and flavor (reduce sourness), this is the "Dutch process".

3. Fine grinding and sieving: further grinding to fine powder (usually particle size 20-30 microns), sieving to obtain cocoa powder with different fat content (such as high fat ≥ 20%, medium fat 10-12%, low fat ≤ 8%).

VI. Post-processing and packaging

After cooling and solidification, cocoa butter is formed, packaged and stored;

The fineness and fat content of cocoa powder are adjusted according to the purpose (food, beverage, baking, etc.), and packaged after sterilization.

VII.Application

Cocoa butter: extracted from cocoa liquid mass by physical pressing, it is a natural vegetable oil, mostly used in chocolate, cosmetics, etc.;

Cocoa powder: processed from the residue after pressing, divided into natural cocoa powder (non-alkalized) and alkalized cocoa powder according to the process, and is an important raw material for beverages and baking.