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My mate up in Punkin country gave me a big bag of macadamia nuts, after I expressed an interest in making a liquer from a recipie on the parent site.

After a couple of hours of cracking them in a bench vise and picking the shells from the kernels, I figured there has to be a better way to crack macadamias. Anyone got any tips?

Had a brother in-law that had a macadamia farm. The job is not easy. There are specialist nut crackers that one can buy but they are neither cheap nor efficient for large quantities.
I found that a hammer (with a deft touch) and a solid (not timber) block was the fastest and easiest, but it still takes a while.
Apart from that you are up for some big $$$ for machines.
Cheers and good luck

There's a macadamia farm here that has all the fruit gunna fall on the ground cause no-ones there to pick em. if it wasn't for the probs you're expressing now i'd do something about it.

some of the locals here make a nut cracker outta a threaded rod. they take a big bolt weld it to a plate.screw a threaded rod through it weld a crank handle to one end and weld a stop for other end . mount it to something and crank it in with nut between end of rod and stop. works well on black walnuts.

Don't know if you have tried cracking macadanias tater but its akin to breaking open a steel ball bearing.
Yes there are similar contraptions here but very time consuming for large quantities, you can eat them faster than opening them.

Maybe a set of rollers like heavy duty grain crusher ?

I've heard of doing this for black walnuts, not sure about macadamias. Take a board and cut a hole that's slightly smaller than the average nut. Put the nut on one side, and hammer it through. Pulverized nut will shoot out one end, and the shell will be left on the other.

Haven't tried it, so I can't say much about it.

Another one:

Lay nuts on concrete drive, place a 2x12 board over nuts - drive car over 2x12 - voila, busted nuts.

Heard of it for black walnuts, never tried it myself though.

Another one that my grandpa used to do, he used to shoot squirrels out of walnut trees, then remove the chewed nuts from the stomach and rinse in cold running water. He swore you would get a handful of already cracked and diced nuts from each squirrel, plus the squirrel meat.

None of those ideas will work for macadamias.
Although the steel roller idea has potential.

The only way i've opened em is with a hammer, but there must be ways and means on the market. All those boutique farms are doing some way.










IfAllElseFailsJustGoogleItPunkin

black walnuts are tough hammer and a pick get small peices to much work.
ours just rot were the fall.

punkin wrote:The only way i've opened em is with a hammer, but there must be ways and means on the market. All those boutique farms are doing some way.

Yeah, might drop in an a couple next time i'm up north..












IfAllElseFailsJustGoogleItPunkin

There are commercial units available which have a worm drive a bit like a meat mincer (ground meat for our US cousins) with adjustment screws to narrow an apperture to provide the required degree of mutilation to said nut.
Run a 25 litre bucket of nuts through in 30 seconds.
You just have to sit down then and seperate the shell from the fruit.
Not an easy job.
Also not a hobby machine.
Enjoy.

use to be said if a girl made you a hickory nut cake she was set for maryin. some ole boys will run black walnut thru there hamer mill.
these boys never did coton to there taste but used the die

so im tole

A good old pair of 430 channel locks are the best nut crackers in the world.

We always put walnuts into a cloth or towel and pounded them with a hammer.

Not a fast way to do it. I like the squirrel idea best!

Is there a problem with the shells? If they aren't poisonous/too bitter I'd not really bother with separating them more than the big 'ol pieces.

These things are really tough to crack, slot locks or channel locks won't cut it.
The shell is at least 1/8" thick and very dense and hard and smooth like a ball bearing and the spherical shape makes them even tougher.
There is no obvious seam on the shell either to exploit.
I think a hammer, one by one, is the only way.
The shell is totally inedible with no taste.



They are fine eating though, crisp and crunchy. Better than walnuts.

google "macadamia nut processing" you will come up with quite a bit of info, including home processing. Seems the best bet is:

Let age and dehydrate 2 weeks or so after harvesting to help the kernel separate from the shell.

Use a vise to crack the shell, commercial processors seem to use counter rotating rollers and recycle the nuts through the rollers adjusting them each time to ensure that all of the nuts are cracked.I suspect that a corona would work if you can adjust it far enough apart though it probably won't be as effective.

It's hard to believe that the humble bush nut has come so far. Who would have thought there was an international gourmet market for these delightful little suckers.