Almond Huller

[OldMcDonald]

Has anyone built their own?

A neighbour and I want to make a pto driven machine. There are lots of YouTube videos. Search almond huller or smallatrici mandorle to see the size of machine we need. They are between about 6 and 10 feet long, and mainly electric motor driven, but that is not a problem. There is limited other information on the net. All the info I can find relates to Italian or Greek machines and importing from there is very expensive.

As in the US, the bigger frowers (none in my vicinity) bulk their harvest to a co-op or private huller and sheller. My nearest is about 150 miles and we want to reduce the volume and weight of what is transported by removing hulls. Also, and this is important, want to keep the nutrients in the hulls on the property.

We are currently planting young trees so have a couple of years before the huller is needed, but want to make an early start on the project. There could be a third person also planting so we are looking at hulling the produce of about 1500/1700 trees to start with, possibly up to 2500. This means very small scale hullers are not appropriate.

Making the general frame seems straight forward (need to confirm the bar spacings) but the "beaters" inside will probably be the critical part, and I am having problems getting any info.

 

[OldMcDonald]

I should have posted a link instead of suggesting people looked it up themselves:
Scrucchiolatrice con trattore - YouTube
SICIL ZAPPA SMALLATRICE PER MANDORLE - Huller for Almond - YouTube

 

[daugen]

I watched the video and several others. They all seem to work the same and you aren't shown the inside mechanism.
instead of mounting this on a three point hitch, any consideration to using a separate small gas motor and belt arrangement that can be pulled say by a UTV?
Take a small utility trailer and mount the mechanism on that. Tow it wherever needed. If it never needs to be moved, electric motor makes the most sense.
You have to build the same cage and internal mechanism anyway it appears. With the right width openings for the nuts you want to harvest.

It would be nice if one of those European brands would post their parts manual online with a schematic; then you can see at least what parts are needed, not that you have to do it exactly the same way. Part lapidary tumbler and part nut wacker.

I'm seriously considering putting in a pecan orchard on my small farm. Already have a large fruit orchard.
I wonder if pecans use them same style machine.
Pecan Cracking Machine - Pecan Shellers - Pecan Equipment has a different style of nut cracker but again,
no one is illustrating their internal features. No here's how it's made.

good luck on your quest for a less expensive alternative.

 

[OldMcDonald]

Many thanks for your reply. I have tried many times to stop a lot of videos to see if I could find out what sort of "beater" arrangement is in there, but with no success. I do not know anybody (or anybody who knows anybody) in an almond growing area where these machines are likely to be used. If I ever find out the mechanism used I will post here. I had hoped somebody on TBN was at least familiar with them and could provide some info on what is inside the cage. I note that most of them are horizontal and not angled so that gravity could move the nuts from the filling box to the outlet - suggesting the possibility that the beaters might be in the form of a screw or auger.

The reason for pto preference is that we already have the tractors and pto shafts. My neighbour (five miles away) does not have electricity on his property and we presently share some equipment that is either carried on the tpl, or on a trailer - lift-on lift-off with tpl. It is no problem though to use a gas (petrol to us) motor instead. If the third person comes in (a mile) then having the huller as towable as you suggest is indeed an option worth considering.

I liked the video about the pecans - very effective, and whilst pricey, worth the money over a few years if you have a small commercial size orchard. Our intention is not to shell our own, but sell them to a processor in shell. One thing I am curious about is right at the beginning he talks about putting the nuts on the table after they are boiled and allowing them to dry. Is this a normal and necessary process? I have never heard of it before.

It also occurred to me that if somebody is building these pecan shellers, then presumably somebody is also building pecan hullers. If your harvest warrants that type of sheller, then it must surely warrant a huller? The almond ones are used for English Walnut hulling too. I have never worked out whether your Black Walnuts have a similar hull, despite having seen several videos of very small scale hullers for them.

I have looked into growing pecans because I believe the local climate will suit them, and I knew of a large plantation in Australia when I farmed there, with similar climate, but I have not been able to source any trees. Maybe the height puts off the southern europeans because they invariably harvest olives by climbing up ladders, and pecans are a wee bit tall for that. I keep my trees a little shorter in height and built a "cherry picker" type platform to fit in the tpl box. I take the tractor and box out to the olives and it is a quick job to reverse into a tree for the high branches. Finished harvesting 500 trees last week without needing a ladder.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

I have both, English and black walnut tree's... The English are "soft" shell, and the black are HARD shell, no comparison at all.

BTW, I also have Butternut tree's and they are hard shell too...

SR

 

[OldMcDonald]

Sawyer Bob, No intentions of arguing, but do you say that your English walnuts have soft shells as in the soft shells of some almond varieties? English walnut shells are definitely hard, not that they need a lot of power to break them, but definitely "hard" in comparison to "soft" almond varieties.

I have no intention of shelling, so the hardness or otherwise of the shell is unimportant, I am only interested in hulling up to a few tons. The shelling will be done by the buyer.

 

[OldMcDonald]

daugen, I have eventually found a video where you can see inside the cage. No measurements yet, but it will give me something to work on. ΚΑΡΥΔΙΑ ΑΠΟΦΛΙΩΤΗΣ - YouTube

They appear to be hulling English walnuts, but the principle is the same.

I know somebody in the UK who has recently bought a small plot and house between the neighbour who will be working on the project with me and myself - very convenient for the future. This new neighbour currently works for a firm who have made pistachio shelling machines, so they have a little bit of practical experience, and he has confirmed he will assist with our development plans for a machine. I will keep you informed of what we do because it might be suitable for your proposed pecans, or others like Sawyer Bob with different nuts.

 

[daugen]

daugen, I have eventually found a video where you can see inside the cage. No measurements yet, but it will give me something to work on. ΚΑΡΥΔΙΑ ΑΠΟΦΛΙΩΤΗΣ - YouTube

paddle wheels, simple paddle wheels like the tail of a beaver...and this time they are adding water to I assume flush away the small debris.
It all seems so crude and imprecise but sure better than doing them one at a time...
I don't understand why more of the broken shell doesn't get mixed in with the nut meat.
I wonder how much you have to pick out and how many times you have to put the whole ones back in,
in other words how efficient is this, which may be irrelevant because it is the only working solution.

and how does it adjust for different sized nuts?

 

[daugen]

I have no intention of shelling, so the hardness or otherwise of the shell is unimportant,
I am only interested in hulling up to a few tons. The shelling will be done by the buyer.

I keep going back and getting confused by this. What is the difference between shelling and hulling?
Black walnuts have a softer green shell so you have to get that off, then the hard nut case below.
I guess I don't understand in what condition you want to sell the nut. Like clean whole walnuts in the store?
Or broken open for the meat. I may have misunderstood you.
Does this machine only get the outside green case off?
That's what the last video looked like.

you have a fascinating website; I never knew that olive leaves by themselves were beneficial; makes sense, olive oil
despite the fat is good for you.

I hope Santa at least brings you one of these...:
Amazon.com: Reed's Rocket Nutcracker: Nut Crackers: Kitchen & Dining

 

[daugen]

Electric Black Walnut Huller - Husker