1. Bonao Cacao Inc. Dominican Organic Cacao
Criollo, Forestero, Trinitario
Less then 3% of Worlds Cacao

2. Bonao Cacao Inc. Who am I? Why Dominican Cacao I am Bonao Cacao
Bonao is where I am from
Cacao is what I do
One of 18 kids
Technology consultant
entrepreneur
I love Farming
Love to inform
Worlds best cacao
Top 3 types of cacao
Less contamination
Support small farmers
Educate small farmers
Keep us green
Best tasting
Freshest
Healthiest

3. The Hernandez Farm
Our farm has been in our family for over 80 years. We have been growing cacao for the past 40 years and we have been organic before the word organic meant anything.

4. The Hernandez Cacao Field
At Our farm we don’t use fertilizers as you can see the ground of our field has tons of leaves that fertilizes the ground. The best fertilizer ever.

5. The 2 Year Old Cacao Tree
It takes anytime from 18 to 24 months for the cacao tree to start producing cacao pods, as you can see pods grow all over the tree.

6. The Cacao Pod
The cacao pod comes in many different colors, Red, Yellow, Orange, Green and purple. There are also many types of cacao just to name the top tree: Criollo, Triniario, Forestero

7. The Inside of a cacao Pod
The cacao pod has a hard shell on the outside, on the inside it has the worlds best tasting pulp EVER. White, sweet and delicious cacao beans covered with a white pulp.. The taste varies from type to type.

8. Picking and Pruning Picking and Pruning Opening and removing hearts
We walk the farm
Locate pods to be harvested
Locate trees to be prune
Cut pods and pile
Prune trees as needed
Walk the field and pile pods in centralized place.
Pick up pruned branches and pile
Place plastic on ground
Remove cacao pulp and seeds from pod
Pile pod shells for fertelizing piles
Remove the hearts from cacao pulp.
Separate hearts from pulp with beans

9. From Field to Fermentation
From the Field
Fermentation
Remove hearts
Load in porous sacks
Transport to fermentation station
Use wheel barrel to move to fermentation station
fermentation box
field fermentation pile
Fermentation bag
The porous Bag system
Pile System
Wood Box System
Hispaniola
Sanchez

10. Types of Fermentations

11. Fermentation Systems Pile System
The pile system is the oldest system used, this system is used in the field or a centralized place . Many ways for this to work. First you need to keep the water from contaminating the pile so you need to build a shelter (simple).
Then dig a set of 2 to 3 holes not to deep, layer the base of the holes with bannana or platano leaves, the pile the cacao pulp with the hearts removed in the first hole. Every 2 days move the cacao pulp from one hole to the other. This will give you an average of 6 to 7 day fermentation. If fermented to long it will spoil the cacao beans. The beans need to be covered with leaves.

12. Fermentation System The Box Fermentation system
The Box fermentation system is one of the most used system today. This system consists of a 3 layer, or multilevel system of wooden boxes placed in a way that you simply have to load the cacao on the top box and every day you would open the door and allow the fermented beans to flow down to the other box for the next stage of fermentation, and finally to the last box then to the drying bed so the Sun can Dry the beans naturally.

13. Home Fermentation The Bucket method
This method is not the best but some small operations ferment their cacao in plastic buckets and for a shorter period of time. If you are not careful this method will overheat the beans and render their value less in terms of nutrition, Flavor and aromas.
My method is the Sack method which is kind of a secret to my Cacao Flavor and aromas. More to come in the future…

14. The Drying Process

15. The Drying Process
The Concrete drying field is one of the most common forms of drying the cacao in most countries. This consists of a area cemented so to spread the cacao on the concrete and move around through out the day to dry out, and if rain is coming , the cacao must be picked up and moved to a dry and safe warehouse until the rain is gone and then the cacao is to be laid back on the field for further drying. This method usually take an average of 10 to 15 days to dry the cacao.
Note: this is not the cleanest way to dry cacao due to the environment. Animals and birds may contaminate the field.

16. Tunnel Drying The Tunnel Drying Method
This is the Method we use at the Hernandez farm, this method dries the cacao clean and the contamination level is greatly reduced due to the design of our drying bed. Our bed is 3 feet off the ground and its enclosed in a tunnel with plastic to keep the heat in and the water and animals out. The cacao is not mistreated at its very fragile stage from fermentation to drying. With this form of drying the cacao dries evenly and complete. This will greatly improve the flavor and aromas that the fermentation process gave the cacao.

17. Storage for the Cacao

18. Cacao Storage Wet cacao Storage Dry cacao Storage
The wet cacao storage system needs to be in place for the process that don’t have the drying tunnel that need to move the cacao in and out of the sun while the drying process
The dry cacao Storage is for the completed and dried cacao to be stored to ready for sale or packaging for the consumer. From this stage then it goes to RAW Clients or to Processing for the Chocolate and baking industry