Reduction of the refining‐conching time of Peruvian dark chocolate: a case study

Summary The refining‐conching stage is crucial in the chocolate manufacturing process for the development of sensory and quality characteristics. However, this stage requires the longest amount of operation time. Thus, the objective of this research was to reduce the refining‐conching time of dark chocolate in a Macintyre refiner/conche in a Peruvian medium‐scale chocolate company. Physical properties of chocolate samples as particle size (by micrometer (PSM) and image analyis (PSIA)), flow behaviour (plastic viscosity (PV) and yield stress (YS)) were determined every 2 h during a total refining‐conching operation time of 20 h. After 12 h, no significant differences were found in those physical properties. Moisture content and a particle size distribution (PSD) percentile DV50 were also measured. Moisture content was measured at the beginning (0 h), at the end of the conventional (20 h) and at the reduced processing time (12 h). Additionally, a sensory evaluation was performed by a trained panel to compare chocolates obtained at a reduced (12 h) and conventional (20 h) refining‐conching times, and no significant differences were found (P