  The nucleation process of quark matter in both cold and hot dense hadronic
matter is investigated using a chiral approach to describe the quark phase. We
use the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio and the Chromo Dielectric models to describe the
deconfined phase and the non-linear Walecka model for the hadronic one. The
effect of hyperons on the transition phase between hadronic and quark matter is
studied. The consequences of the nucleation process for neutron star physics
are outlined.
