Construction of Prototype Fire-Wood Clay Oven for Drying Cocoa Beans in Ghana

Despite several attempts made by various studies in trying to reduce the drying period, the period is still high. The main objective of the study was to compose insulating bricks to construct portable clay oven fueled by fire-wood for drying cocoa beans in order to minimize the prolong and hectic periods that Ghanaian cocoa farmers go through to get cocoa beans dried. The study sought to construct cocoa drying oven using Abonko clay, Atuobo red sand and sawdust as the main materials for the manufacturing of insulation bricks. Various proportions of the materials were experimented to arrive at the successful outcome of test 5 (6 parts of Abonko clay: 2 parts of sand: 2 parts of sawdust) and fired at 1200 0C, Therefore, the study adopted test5 as the body for making the insulating bricks to construct the clay oven Mild steel barrel was used as the main frame for holding the clay oven. The bricks were carefully cut to size and shape, arranged and fixed in the oven. Two (2) kilograms of fermented cocoa beans were placed and heated in the clay oven to determine its moisture content at different temperatures. It was realized that the prototype clay oven was able to dry the cocoa beans and reduced the moisture content from 75.9% to 6.4.0% in 4 hours and 30 mins at the temperature of 130 0C. The study recommended among others that; the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana could do further research to find out the quality of the cocoa beans dried using the clay oven method. in terms of nutritional values, moisture content level, abnormal odours and insect pest and mould contamination