Today I planted another wiliwili tree below a pheasantwood that I plan on phasing out. This is the third wiliwili tree that we planted.
Its feeling like winter in Hawaii now. The winds are picking up, nights are cooler and the abundance of rain recently is making everything grow at a steady pace. During the day it’s been really nice weather.
The cacao beans we started fermenting last Wednesday evening is still going. I noticed they were cold for 5 days and took forever to heat up to optimal temps. Fermentation usually goes for about 7 days but we are on day 8. Julia has an interesting theory about this. Apparently yeasts can become less active during thunderstorms and she sees this a lot in her sourdough bread starters. So if this is what’s going on with our cacao ferment then we’ll just add an extra day and the beans should be ready to be put out on the drying racks tomorrow.
This also reminded me about Julia saying that her grandmother could predict the weather based on how her stored bread was looking like that day.
Originally posted on 2021-12-10, part of the daily planting journal behind Ha’a Chocolate’s food forest on Hawai’i Island.