Food Chemistry and Fat Analysis
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Peer reviewed
Abstract
Abstract
The compounds responsible for a variety of off-flavors that occasionally occur in fermented cocoa have recently been identified, but their origin is not yet fully understood. However, overfermentation has been suggested as a possible source. Quantitation of potential off-flavor compounds in well fermented and overfermented samples resulting from fermentation trials in Nicaragua and Costa Rica showed that overfermentation can lead to smoky, leathery, and horse stable-like off-flavors caused by 2-methoxyphenol and 4-ethylphenol, and to cheesy, vomit-like off-flavors caused by short-chain carboxylic acids such as 2-methylpropanoic acid, butanoic acid, 2-methylbutanoic acid, and 3-methylbutanoic acid. The concentrations of 2-methoxyphenol and 4-ethylphenol in the overfermented cocoa samples were in a similar range as previously reported in cocoa samples with wood smoke contamination during artificial drying. To avoid overfermentation, measuring the pH of the fermentation mass emerged as a potential alternative to the daily evaluation of a representative number of cocoa bean cross sections.
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@article{Krause2026Flavor,
title = {Off-Flavor Compounds in Fermented Cocoa: Impact of Overfermentation},
author = {Franziska Krause and Martin Steinhaus},
journal = {Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry},
year = {2026},
doi = {10.1021/acs.jafc.6c05685},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jafc.6c05685}
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