Higrocopicity of cocoa´s beans at 25oC

Abstract

The aim of this work was to determine the moisture adsorption isotherm for cocoa’s beans at 25^oC, who were produced in Baracoa, Cuba. The moisture sorption isotherm was made according to the Landrock and Proctor method between 0,113 to 0,90 a_w interval, then Microbiological analysis was performed at the equilibrium. Results for Guggenheim, Anderson and Boer (G.A.B.) model fitted were highly significant (R²`= 0.96). The content of humidity initial average of the beans of cocoa was 7.28% bs. At the equilibrium for aw 0.75 the humidity content of cocoa´s bean was 7.76%. The samples of cocoa´s bean exposed to aw of 0,845 and 0.93 after be reached the equilibrium presented counts of molds of 10² and 10³ ufc/g, respectively.