Walnut processing: stages and equipment
Walnut processing is considered a laborious process especially if each of the steps is completed manually. On the other hand, manually collecting and processing nuts can save you decent money on the purchase of equipment. Both of methods has its pros and cons, let’s see – which one is more reliable and convenient for your purpose.
The first thing you will need to do before purchasing the equipment is to evaluate your capabilities and volumes of batches of walnuts that you plan to process. If you are going to process bags of nuts, then it is quite realistic to beat such volumes manually, to process tons of nuts it is better to use large-sized industrial equipment.
Imagine, that in an 8-hour working day 1 person can crack 100-120 kg of walnut, for a bulkhead at a more or less average pace 4-5 people will be needed. It is not enough to crack nuts, after cracking, walnut kernel should be separated from shell. To have a 40 kg of kernel from 100 kg of broken walnut nearly 4 person will be needed.
Some types of nutcrackers are capable to process up to 500 kg of walnut per hour.
Manual cracking and peeling of the walnut remain the most gentle ways to remove the kernel from the shell. And the percentage of getting a “butterfly” (halves) with this method is maximum. The main disadvantage of manual work is that a certain skill in working with a hammer is necessary to maintain the integrity of the core and that comes with experience. Also, do not forget that manual processing is always a noisy and rather dusty process. If you are going to crack walnut at home, you will disturb the peace of your neighbors.
Experienced processors often use a mechanical nutcrackers in order not to use hammer at home.
And finally, in general, manual processing of nuts can be called a painstaking process, which requires perseverance, patience and even physical endurance and it is also very difficult to process large volumes in a short time.
The scale of processing batches of walnuts can always be increased by expanding capacities, mainly by acquiring an industrial walnut cracker. In this case, it is necessary to keep in mind the cost of labor, rent of premises and the cost of the equipment itself.
People think that by installing an electric nutcracker they completely eliminate manual labor. But this is not a truth. Industrial equipment with productivity up to 100 kg/h. In 5 working hours will process up to 500 kg of walnut, which must be cleaned from shells and partitions. In order to do this as quickly and efficiently as possible, you need some workers, be sure – you will need an extra costs to pay them.
If you still have a big nut business, then total automation of processing will be a real salvation for you to maximize the result.
Install an aspiration table, various sorting equipment that will replace the full-fledged work of 8-12 people. For convenience, walnut processing can be equipped with:
– conveyor for feeding the walnut from the splitting unit into the vibrating sieve;
– inspection table or sorting table;
– kits for docking (such a kit is able to accelerate the cleaning of walnuts, increase the percentage of “butterflies” and reduce hand injuries);
– calibrator
– etc.
Any automation will result in a lower percentage of the whole kernel in the output compared to manual processing. But, automation will significantly reduce labor costs, increase processing volumes and make it possible to develop and scale production.
At home, walnut processing is limited. And you should always remember this, giving preference to one or another method.
Thus, the automation of processing or the manual process are selected based on its final goal, the time range for processing and the volume of batches of nuts.