You can crack hazelnuts with improvised means – a door jamb or pliers. When the volume of a nut becomes more than a couple of nuts, special nutcrackers come to the rescue.
Hazelnuts do not have partitions, which makes it easier to extract the kernel from the shell. To crack hazelnuts in small quantities, hand-held nutcrackers Universal and Whole Kernel 3 in 1 are used.
In hazelnut orchards, cracking hazelnuts by hand is too long and monotonous. Therefore, electric roller nutcrackers with a capacity of 50 kg/h are used.
Roller nut crackers show excellent results when cracking hazelnuts. Nutcrackers of this type, when properly adjusted, carefully crack the shell and provide a yield of the whole kernel up to 90%.
Cracked hazelnuts are sorted by hand and the kernels are taken from the shell. The selection process takes time and is acceptable when the time is right.
If it is necessary to quickly sort the kernel, an aspiration column helps, which blows out the light shell with a stream of air. The heavier core is sent to a separate container.
In total, a manual or electric nutcracker is enough for processing hazelnuts, and an aspiration system is enough to automate sorting.
For industrial plantations of hazelnuts, industrial lines are used, in which case the stages of calibration of hazelnuts in shell and kernels, and quality control of finished products are added.
