Correlation between Electrical Conductivity and the Percentage of Fermented Beans for Peruvian CCN 51 Cocoa Beans

Abstract

The objective of this study was to determine whether there is a relationship between electrical conductivity (EC) and the percentage of fermented beans (FB) of the CCN 51 cocoa bean cultivar. To this effect, the FB of three lots of cocoa beans fermented from 0 to 6 days was evaluated via the cut test method. In addition, the effect of the number of beans (15, 20, 25), the days of fermentation (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), and production lots (1, 2, 3) on the EC of whole and cut beans was evaluated (p<0,05). Then, EC values of 15, 20, and 25 of each presentation (whole or cut) of cocoa beans were correlated with their FB. An increase in FB from 0,00 to 89,70% was observed after six days of fermentation. The EC increased from 6,86 to 42,73 µS cm-1 g-1 in whole beans and from 38,45 to 63,16 µS cm-1 g-1 for cut beans as the fermentation progressed. There were no significant differences (p < 0,05) between the EC of 15, 20, and 25 whole beans. On the other hand, there was a significant different (p < 0,05) in EC of 15 cut beans in comparison to EC of 20 and 25 cut beans. Finally, it was concluded that there is a directly proportional linear relationship between the EC and the FB of cocoa beans, which is stronger for whole beans, with correlation coefficients of 0,963, 0,967, and 0,959 for 15, 20, and 25 beans, respectively.