Systems and methods for reduced refining during cocoa liquor processing
AssigneeMars, Incorporated
InventorsAditya JOSYULA, Dale SLESSER, John KAISER, Rogaite SHAFI, Matthew KELLEY, Jose GONZALEZ
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Abstract
Methods and systems for providing processed cocoa nibs are provided. The methods involve coarse grinding cocoa nibs to form a slurry and subjecting less than all of the cocoa slurry to refining. The refined and unrefined volumes or portions of cocoa slurry are then recombined to provide a recombined cocoa product. The cocoa nibs produced by the method may be further processed to provide cocoa liquor or chocolate.
Claims20
A method for producing a recombined cocoa product, which method comprises the steps of:
- grinding cocoa nibs to create a coarse cocoa slurry comprising a liquid portion and a particulate portion,
- separating the coarse cocoa slurry in a single separating step to create a precipitate and a supernatant,
- wherein the precipitate is less than 50% by weight of the cocoa slurry,
- mixing the precipitate composition ingredients with a sweetener ingredient,
- refining that mixture comprising the precipitate in a refining step to create a refined precipitate composition, and
- combining cocoa product ingredients comprising the refined precipitate composition and the supernatant in a combining step to form the recombined cocoa product.
(canceled)
A method for processing cocoa nibs, the method comprising:
- coarsely grinding cocoa nibs to form a cocoa slurry comprising a cocoa liquid and cocoa solid particles in the cocoa liquid, wherein the cocoa liquid comprises cocoa butter;
- separating the cocoa slurry in a separation step into a liquid portion and a precipitate portion, wherein the liquid portion comprises a portion of the cocoa solid particles forming a particle portion within the liquid portion, and wherein the particle portion comprises cocoa solid particles having a D90 value equal to or less than about 40 μm;
- refining the precipitate portion to form a refined precipitate in a refining step;
- and
- recombining the liquid portion and the refined precipitate in a combining step to produce a recombined cocoa product.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.