Cocoa pod borer (Conopomorpha cramerella (Snellen)) is the main fatal pest that destroys cocoa plantations in South East Asia, mainly in Indonesia and Malaysia. Infested cocoa beans stick to each other, the pulp become hard and normal fermentation process to produce flavour precursors cannot be done. This research aimed to utilize the infested cocoa beans as a source of phenolic compounds. Extraction of phenolic compounds was carried out for three infestation levels regarded as low, medium and heavy. Parameters of study were bean size, shell content, fat content, total polyphenol and antioxidant activity. Results of the study showed that the increase in cocoa pod borer infestation significantly decreased cocoa bean size, fat content and total polyphenol; but shell content was increased. Antioxidant activity of the extracted polyphenol was not significantly affected by the infestation. The results clearly indicate that cocoa beans infested by cocoa pod borer can potentially to be used as a source of phenolic compounds for natural antioxidant uses.
Roasting is an important process that contribute to formation of flavour compounds in cocoa beans. Pyrazines, a by-product of Maillard reaction is one of the character impact compounds that contribute to unique cocoa flavour. Unfortunately during roasting, carcinogenic acrylamide are also produced through Maillard reaction. Therefore, this study was focussed on optimising the roasting conditions using Central Composite Design (CCD) to produce superior quality cocoa beans with high concentration of pyrazines and low concentration of acrylamide. The roasting conditions used were temperatures in the range of 110⁰C to 160⁰C and time ranging from 15 min to 40 min. Roasting conditions significantly (p
Central Composite Design (CCD) was used to optimize roasting conditions (temperature and
time) for Arabica coffee beans. Current method of roasting was able to give good quality beans
in term of flavour but the formation of acrylamide was not studied. In this study, optimization
based on high quantity of flavour compounds (pyrazines) with low level of acrylamide resulted
in roasting temperature of 167ºC for 22 minutes. The coffee beans produced using the optimized
conditions have the following characteristics: flavour compounds: 2,3,5 trimethyl pyrazine (0.48
mg/100 g), 2,3,5,6 tetramethyl pyrazine (0.42 mg/100 g), 2 methyl pyrazine (0.25 mg/100 g)
and 2,5 dimethyl pyrazine (0.13 mg/100 g) and low concentration of acrylamide (0.11 mg/100
g) with sensory evaluation of 7.5 from 10 points. This proposed roasting condition will be very
useful for coffee manufacturers in order to produce high quality coffee beans.