Basket and micro-lot fermentation
Fermenting volumes too small to fill a box. Necessary for single-farm lots and harder than it looks.
Micro-lot fermentation uses lined baskets or small boxes for quantities that would not fill standard infrastructure — a single farm's harvest, or a trial batch.
The difficulty is thermal. Fermentation is exothermic and the mass has to retain its own heat to reach the 45 to 50°C the process needs; a small mass loses heat to its surroundings much faster than a large one. Insulation, covering and siting all matter more at this scale, and a micro-lot that never reaches temperature simply does not ferment.
What it does
Ferments small quantities while retaining enough heat for the microbial succession to proceed.
Why it matters
It is what makes single-farm and single-lot traceability possible at all, and it is the hardest fermentation to get right.
- Typical duration
- 3–7 days
- Optional?
- Used where lot separation matters more than efficiency.
When it goes wrong
Failing to reach or hold fermentation temperature, producing an under-fermented lot regardless of how carefully everything else was done.
Related
Covered in
- Fermentation explainedSmall-batch fermentation, and the reason micro-lots can be kept separate at all.
Compared in
- Basket vs box fermentationSet against Box fermentation, with the practical consequence of each difference.
Sources
- ChocolateHQ editorial synthesis — ChocolateHQ(citation identity confirmed; passage not re-read)
- Chocolate Science and Technology — Wiley-Blackwell(citation identity confirmed; passage not re-read)