The success of the walnut business is influenced by many factors, the main ones being the quality of the walnut, correctly selected equipment and organization of production, and a good place of sale. Everyone understands that the higher the quality of the nut, the easier its processing, the higher the quality of the final product and, accordingly, the higher the profit. But how does the quality of the nut affect the processing itself?
Quality walnut is a nut with a thin or normal shell and kernel, which is easily removed and separated from the partitions. Depending on the degree of drying, it can be wet (including fresh, only harvested), medium humidity and dry.
Wet walnut is more elastic, after splitting the shell cracks, and the nut itself retains its shape. When splitting such a nut, the yield of a whole kernel is very high, however, manual force is required to extract the kernel. Due to its high elasticity, the vibrating sieve is not capable of sorting the nut and most of it ends up undershot. Due to the equally heavy kernel and shell, aspiration is not able to efficiently blow the nut and separate the shell from the kernel. Total: a high yield of a whole kernel is obtained from a wet nut, while manual force is required for the bulkhead.
Medium moisture walnut is ideal for processing. It has enough elasticity to maintain the integrity of the kernel, while the shell breaks easily. The vibrating sieve qualitatively sorts such a nut into fractions, and the aspiration blows out the light shell and partitions. As a result, we get the most sorted kernel, ready for further packaging or processing.
A dry walnut is very fragile, its shell cracks easily, and with it the kernel crumbles. When a dry nut is split, the percentage of the whole kernel is reduced and this does not depend on the method of splitting. Nutcracker, vibrating sieve and aspiration can easily handle dry nuts, but it is very difficult to get a high yield of a whole kernel.
Another indicator of quality is calibration. Walnut of the same size is easier to process, saves equipment setup time and produces a kernel of approximately the same size. So, when using a roll nutcracker, calibration allows you to correctly adjust the nutcracker, reduce the percentage of crushed nuts, and increase the percentage of whole kernels. When used a conical nutcracker, it allows for more fine tuning of the nutcracker, facilitates further processing and increases the yield of the whole kernel.
Poor quality includes dry (overdried) and greedy (thick-bore, dolbun, cleaver) nuts. In the case of a dry nut, the situation can be remedied by briefly soaking the nut or placing it in a humid environment. In this case, the kernel must be dried after splitting.
The greedy nut is a nut with a thick shell and membranes ingrown into the kernel. Cracking a greedy nut is difficult, so the resource of a nutcracker is almost halved. Due to the kernel tightly adhering to the membranes and shell, it is difficult to get it even by hand; sorting equipment (vibrating sieve and aspiration) all the more cannot sort it qualitatively. In large enterprises, a greedy nut is considered a marriage, since a lot of time and effort is spent on processing it. Unlike dry walnut, nothing can be done with greedy, it just needs to be avoided.
The easiest way to process is the walnut bought in the orchards – it is of the same variety, size, moisture content, shell thickness. In those countries where there are few industrial walnut orchards, you need to learn to identify the greedy nut and avoid it in every possible way. Also, the nut needs to be calibrated, this saves time, effort and nerves. Too wet gives a high percentage of the whole kernel, only after processing it must be dried to prevent mold from appearing. Overdried nuts can be moistened, and after splitting and bulkheads can also be dried.