Testing for cocoa butter purity

hi all,

Is there a way to test the purity of cocoa butter?

I was asked to alkali refine cocoa butter with high ffa. This was done lab scale and was able to lower ffa. The melted cocoa butter was clear and no visual sign of white substances. However, I want to be certain that no NaOH is left in the cocoa butter as this will be used for the production of chocolates.

thanks!

BUMP for Abbie.

Hello Abbie,

Since cocoa butter is actually a mixture of triacylglycerols i.e. of oleic, stearic and palmitic acid with glycerol, and adding excess NaOH will produce water and soap, I don't think that you need much to do than check it visually for any formation of soap and measure its pH until its at the desirable level as you did until now. From what I know, too intensive alkalization may alter the way the butter solidifies and also it can reduce its shelf life down to 6 months if stored as solid and 1 months if in liquid form.
Good luck!



Best Regards,
Philip

hi all,

Is there a way to test the purity of cocoa butter?

I was asked to alkali refine cocoa butter with high ffa. This was done lab scale and was able to lower ffa. The melted cocoa butter was clear and no visual sign of white substances. However, I want to be certain that no NaOH is left in the cocoa butter as this will be used for the production of chocolates.

thanks!

if you want know if there any NaOH left on chocolate, you can try measuring pH.. You can try make 10% solution and make range standard of pH, the standard are pH when chocolate do not contain NaOH and pH when Max. concentraion of NaOH in products still acceptable..

Thats my simple idea for you...

rgds

AS Nur

Thanks guys, is your question answered Abbie?