Content
- 1 How and how long to boil a pine cone to extract the nuts
- 2 How to peel pine nuts at home
- 3 How to clean pine nuts on an industrial scale
- 4 Processing nuts after cleaning
- 5 Conclusion
Peeling pine nuts at home is quite difficult. The small, dense seeds of the northern tree with a strong shell are almost impossible to break. There is no equipment for peeling pine nuts at home. Residents of the northern regions know the secrets of cleaning hard northern fruits. You can take advantage of their many years of experience.
How and how long to boil a pine cone to extract the nuts
To clean northern nuts, cedar shoots are collected in late autumn. They should turn dark gray or brown and have woody, hard scales. This means that the nuts are ripe and can be eaten. It is possible to extract nuts from a cone only if it is first boiled for half an hour, but not more than 40 minutes.
It is better to cook cedar shoots in the open air and in an old vessel. When cooked, they release large amounts of resin and a strong aroma. The tarry coating on the walls of the pan is almost impossible to wash off.
For cooking, take a pan of a suitable size. The collected cones are placed at the bottom and filled with water. The liquid should completely cover the cedar fruits. A layer of grass or hay should be placed on top. This trick will help get rid of excess resin, the shoots will not float to the surface.
Place the pan on the fire and bring the water to a boil. Afterwards, reduce the heat and cook the cones until a strong pine smell appears. This will take approximately half an hour. After the pan is removed from the fire, the shoots are laid out on a dry surface to cool. As soon as the cedar fruits have cooled, they begin to peel them.
How to peel pine nuts at home
The hard shell of the northern tree nuts is difficult to remove. There are several ways to crack pine nuts at home. To do this, they use various available tools and ingenuity. To make the nut shell more pliable, it is softened with boiling water, cold, or heat.
How to soften pine nuts using boiling water
Place the nuts in a shallow bowl and pour boiling water over them for 5-10 minutes. Afterwards, take out the nuts and place them on a dry towel and let them drain. Then you can start peeling them.
How to quickly peel pine nuts using the roasting method
You can roast the nuts in the oven. Afterwards, the shells are easier to clean, and the taste of the finished product will be much better.
You can shell pine nuts at home in the following way:
- Rinse the cedar seeds under running water, do not wipe them afterwards.
- Preheat the oven to + 150 Cᵒ.
- Place the nuts on a baking sheet in one layer and place in the oven. They should be placed on the highest shelf in the oven.
- Simmer the cedar fruits for about 15 minutes. The process should be controlled so as not to overcook them.
As soon as the shell turns golden or light brown, the pine nuts can be removed. They are poured onto a towel and allowed to cool for half an hour. After this time, the nuts can be peeled using a regular rolling pin. They are covered with a cloth and with force they begin to roll a rolling pin over the fruits, while the shells easily crack.
How to peel pine nuts using the freezing method
First, put the hard nuts in the freezer to soften for a couple of hours. They are first placed in a plastic bag. The air must be released from the bag. Then the cellophane is tied tightly. After freezing, the nuts can be easily peeled by crushing them with a rolling pin. The shell becomes fragile and is easily separated from the core.
How to shell pine nuts using temperature changes
For this method, first heat the frying pan on the stove. Then pour the fruits into it without adding oil. Heat the pine cone seeds for 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly. You should not fry nuts for more than 5 minutes; they will lose their taste.
After the specified time has passed, the product is transferred to a container filled with ice water. Keep it there for no more than 1 minute.Afterwards, the contents of the cones are transferred to a towel and allowed to absorb excess moisture.
Dried pine nuts can be placed in a plastic bag, let the air out of it and tie it tightly. Then you can crush the shell with a rolling pin. You should not put too much pressure on the fruit, as the shell becomes fragile and the kernels can be damaged.
How to crack pine nuts at home by hand
In addition to heat treatment, various available tools that are available in every household are used to peel hard nuts.
These could be the following devices:
- rolling pin;
- pliers;
- garlic press;
- hammer.
If you get used to it, you can learn how to peel the seeds of a cone without damaging the kernels.
rolling pin
A rolling pin makes it easy to peel processed and fresh pine nuts at home. They are placed in a bag or on a towel, covering the top with the free edge. Then they begin to roll it out with a rolling pin. Cedar cones soaked in boiling water or frozen are cleaned with a minimum of effort. It takes force to peel raw nuts.
Hammer
For this cleaning method, take seeds treated with boiling water or fresh ones. They are laid out on a waffle towel in one half. The free end is covered with cedar fruits. Then they begin to hit it lightly with a hammer. The main thing is not to overdo it, so as not to end up with kernels and shell fragments.
Pliers, garlic press
If there are only a few nuts, they are cleaned with improvised tools: pliers or a garlic press. In this case, the cedar seeds are peeled one at a time. For this method you need to be patient, since this work is painstaking.
It is better to first pour boiling water over the pine cone seeds and then dry them.Afterwards, each fruit is clamped between parts of the pliers and the handles begin to be squeezed until they crunch. Do this carefully and slowly, as it is easy to crush the nut completely.
A few cone seeds are loaded into the garlic press and the handles begin to be squeezed. You should not do this abruptly, using maximum effort: there is a high probability of getting nut porridge. The press can very well act as a hulling machine for pine nuts.
Machines for peeling pine nuts
In modern conditions, large volumes of northern nuts are processed on special machines - pine nut shellers. With their help, you can clean up to 70 kg of raw materials per hour. Such machines can be seen at special processing factories, or you can make them yourself.
The device for cleaning pine nuts performs a full cycle of processing raw materials:
- crushes the shell;
- separates kernels;
- removes the film from the nut;
- sifts out debris from the finished product.
Using a machine for cleaning pine nuts, you can clean seeds not only for home use, but also create a small business for processing northern tree raw materials.
How to clean pine nuts on an industrial scale
Until recently, the entire process of cleaning northern walnuts was done manually. Now powerful machines capable of processing several tons of raw materials per day cope with this. All of these devices work differently.
Here are some basic principles of how pine nut peelers work:
- Mechanical method – the seeds are cracked in a special container using a pine nut press, then they are poured into another container for further processing.
- Vacuum method – the raw materials are subjected to pressure changes in a special container, after which the husks are easy to clean.
- Crushing and sizing method – at the first stage, the raw materials are subjected to mechanical action in a pine nut sheller, then poured into separate containers for complete cleaning.
- Exposure to liquid nitrogen – the seeds are heated and then dipped in liquid nitrogen; the shell easily crumbles without any extra effort.
At the last stage of factory production, cedar fruits are sorted by size and packaged in airtight containers to preserve their taste for a long time.
The only negative is that the equipment often spoils the kernels themselves, leaving particles of them in the total mass of the finished product. Such crushed seeds are also sold, only at a lower cost than whole ones.
Processing nuts after cleaning
In accordance with state food standards, pine nut kernels must be sorted.
Packages of premium northern nuts contain crushed particles (no more than 10% of the total mass of the finished product). In a first-grade product, the content of crushed kernels is allowed to be no more than 15%. Low quality nut packages may contain 80% crushed kernels.
Sorting and calibration of cedar fruits takes place on special equipment. After cleaning, the resulting kernels are dried and fried in dryers to remove excess moisture and prevent the growth of mold and pathogenic bacteria.
Conclusion
You can peel pine nuts at home using various tools and tricks.After heat treatment and freezing, the product is easy to clean, but it cannot be stored for more than a week. Being in the shell, the nuts retain their beneficial properties and taste for a long time. It is recommended to clean them immediately before use.
Using machines, large volumes of nuts are processed in a short time. The finished product has a long shelf life, thanks to high-quality drying and vacuum packaging.
