Diseño de procesos poscosecha y evaluación de la fermentación mediante levaduras para cacao nacional

This project describes a post-harvest method design for Cacao Nacional at the company “La Leyenda del Chocolate Ltda” located in Puerto Quito, Pichincha, Ecuador. The post-harvest stages of cocoa in Ecuador are carried out empirically by farmers, causing high variability in beans final quality. In order to standardize the quality of Cacao Nacional beans on the chocolate manufacturing plant, the company requested a model to implement post-harvest handling. For the design of facilities, several options and fermentation and drying methodologies were analyzed to determine the alternative that fits best to company working conditions. Additionally, to standardize the fermentation processes of Cacao Nacional beans in Puerto Quito, the yeasts in this process were identified and subsequently inoculated and evaluated. The inoculation of two treatments and one control were assessed. The first treatment consisted in Saccharomyces cerevisiae isolated from Cacao Nacional beans, the second was a commercial Saccharomyces cerevisiae and finally, a non-inoculated control was used. It was possible to conclude that the design of the post-harvest method is dimensioned for a weekly production of 625 kg of Cacao Nacional. Yeasts isolated from the mucilaginous pulp of the cocoa beans in the stage of fermentation belonged to Saccharomyces, Kloeckera and Candida genera. The sample inoculated with Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeasts isolated from Cacao Nacional generated a better fermentation index than the other two treatments. Unfortunately, had not been realized studies dealing with isolation and identification of yeast species involved during cocoa fermentation have been performed in Puerto Quito, which allow comparisons, however, with this study, it was possible to identify the dominant yeast species during the fermentations of beans of Cocoa National in this area. ; El presente trabajo describe una propuesta de diseño para una planta de beneficio de Cacao Nacional para la empresa “La Leyenda del Chocolate LTDA.” ubicada en la Parroquia ...