As far as I know, post-harvesting, chocolates are then fermented,dried, sorted, and then bagged. The cacaos are then shipped to factories to be roasted, crushed, conched, tempered, then made to bars.(Correct me if I'm wrong)
What I'm about to ask is the post-harves methods(not the factory processing).
I live in Indonesia, where these things are often neglected or done incorrectly so that the crops are usually bad(not that they're all bad, but most of the bulks are far lower qualities than West African's).
What I am wondering is what are the methods of each those steps?
Like in fermenting, I know that some plantations cover them with plantains, some others uses a cabinet-like thing. Is there other ways/methods of this step?
And in drying, I know that some are sun-dried, and some others are smoked.
Is there other ways/methods?
And what are usually the guidelines of those methods?
Is there a particular signs(cotyledons, degree of dryness,etc) that should be noted during this process?
updated by @jeffry-lukito: 04/19/15 03:27:09