Kamarisima
Cocoa fruit is one of the strategic plantation commodities in Indonesia. However, until now the processing process of non-standardized cocoa beans causes the quality of chocolate produced not uniform. In addition, the knowledge of cocoa farmers who are still minimal related to cocoa processing is also a sustainable production constraint in Indonesia. Therefore, the standardization of processing cocoa seeds to become ready-selling products is very important. In cocoa seed processing, one of the most important stages in the establishment of a taste of delicious chocolate products is the fermentation process. This fermentation process can produce a variety of unique characteristics that come from biochemical reactions between microbes and various substrates contained in the sheath and cocoa beans. So far, some conventional farmers carry out traditional fermentation processes by utilizing banana leaves and wooden boxes. This causes the fermentation process that occurs not uniformly at each production time, because of the number and diversity of microbes that play different roles. Cocoa-seed fermentation research conducted by the SITH team has been started since 2018. Various microbes have been obtained in a role in the process of fermentation of cocoa beans, including: yeast, lactic acid bacteria (bales), and acetic acid bacteria (BAA). The study was then continued in 2019, with the optimization objectives of the fermentation process using microbial starter that had been isolated, to a scale of 100kg of fresh cocoa fruit, through funding the LPIK ITB innovation program. Based on this result it has been obtained brown rods with standard qualities. Furthermore, research is carried out based on research that has been carried out, the yield of cocoa fruit on smallholders has varieties and diverse harvest qualities, so it is needed to adjust the condition of fermentation and also the culture starter used. Furthermore, in 2020 optimization of processing dry brown seeds with second fermentation have been carried out and obtained brown products with good quality. West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) is one of the provinces in Indonesia that relies on cocoa as a regional mainstay commodity. One of the districts who become cocoa production cocoa in NTB is North Lombok Regency (KLU). This district, especially in Gangga Subdistrict, has the largest cocoa plantation area, which is 1,285.55 hectares and the highest cocoa production of 577.85 tons with an average production of 508.58 kg / hectare (KLU Agriculture Service Office, 2018). However, cocoa processing carried out is still simple. Most farmers prefer to directly sell the yield of cocoa beans, without doing the fermentation process. Especially in 2019, the KLU regional cocoa plantation was chosen as chocolate village which is expected to be the mainstay of NTB education and tourism. This community service activity will involve all local brown farmers who are members of the Blooming Farmers Community. This community houses around 20 farmers with the scope of brown plantation land reaching 46.8 ha. In this activity, the implementation of cocoa processing technology will be implemented with controlled fermentation. Controlled fermentation that has been developed by the standardization of the use of microbial inoculum as a starter and also the application of an integrated sensor system with an Internet of Things (IOT) approach to monitoring the chocolate fermentation process. The activity of implementing appropriate technology will be carried out gradually starting from 2021 to 2022, and continued with periodic assistance and periodic review until 2023. In the first year (2021) the implementation of the technology carried out is the implementation of controlled fermentation technology by using a microbial starter. Farmers will be accompanied by the handling and management of microbial starter independently, to produce good quality chocolate products. In the second year (2022) the main target is the application of a IoT-based sensor system in the chocolate fermentation process. This activity includes socialization of basic knowledge regarding sensor and iot systems, independent fermented reactor assembly training, and also sustainable system use. With this activity it is expected that the results of research that have been carried out can be used directly and independently by the flower farmer community blooming and can be used as a village for example for other coat farmers in NTB. The achievement target of this activity is (1) the formation of standardized chocolate fermentation and validated both physically, chemically and biological; and (2) obtained processed chocolate products that have good quality and consistent and nutritional content and unique characteristics of fermented cocoa beans and chocolate stems produced by the chocolate farmer community blooming in NTB. In addition, it is expected that this activity will be found economically benefits to various components in product regulation, such as farmers, SITH and industry.
Prototype / trl.
Products produced cocoa seed products with excellent seed quality with 10 times the increase in selling value compared to cocoa beans without fermentation, helping the development of genggelang villages as chocolate production villages