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Author Topic: What can I do with my Almonds?  (Read 38799 times)

Keith

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What can I do with my Almonds?
« on: September 14, 2009, 02:24:03 AM »
This is not the right place to ask this question but here goes.

I have bought a house and a piece of land near to the Costa Tropical on the Granada coast.

There are 40 almond trees. The green husks are now dropping off the almonds and they are ready to pick.

What can I do with them?

Can I take them to a cooperative?
 

granadaexpert

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Re: What can I do with my Almonds?
« Reply #1 on: September 14, 2009, 03:24:39 AM »
This is a question of economics and the aplication of statistics.

I have some almonds trees and I have done some research for you.

There are 2 options.

Send your almonds to a cooperative or crack them yourself.

At the cooperative (in an article on the internet) the current price is
60 cents per kilo for almonds in their shells.

According to my measurements 1 kilo of almonds with shells results in about 132 grams of shelled almonds.

That would theoretically give you the price of 7.57 euros  per kilo of shelled almonds at the cooperative.

I spent 18 minutes 12 seconds cracking almond nuts which resulted in 208 grams of nuts.

That is 1 gram every 5.25 seconds.

At that rate a human can shell a kilo in 87.5 minutes.

By the way the cracking technique I used is to use a small hammer on a concrete floor.
First smash all the almonds on their sides with the hammer then later pick the almond nuts out of the debris.

The other important factor is the price of Almonds in the shops.

On the Mercadona website a kilo of raw almond nuts is 14 euros per kilo.

If you were paying yourself to crack the Almonds your earnings would be:

At supermarket prices
16 cents per minute or 9.60 euros per hour.

At cooperative prices
8.6 cents per minute or 5.15 euros per hour.

CONCLUSION:

With 40 almond trees it would be best to pick and crack the nuts yourself.
Almonds are very nuitritious.
Have you tried heating them up in a frying pan with a tiny bit of oil and  sprinkle of salt?
They are absolutly amazing.

Get a Chicken Korma recipe which uses almonds.

There is an interesting Andalucian cold soup recipe which is "Ajo Blanco".
It uses ground almonds and broad bean flour.
If it is made right it is really good.





 
« Last Edit: September 14, 2009, 03:29:29 AM by granadaexpert »

nutcracker

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Re: What can I do with my Almonds?
« Reply #2 on: August 14, 2011, 02:11:10 AM »
Cracking almonds with a hammer is better than a hand nutcracker but nothing like as good as a partidora.

In the ferreteria (hardware shop) in Ancho de Capuchinos in Granada you can buy  partidoras.
The price is about 40 euros.
Apparently they are made by an old man up the the Alpujarras in a small workshop.

The partidora consists of  a handle which imparts a very large force onto a metal plate.

Almost no effort is required  even with the hardest nuts, even a child can do it.

Once you have worked up a rhythm feeding the nutcracker with the left hand and pulling the handle with the right  the cracking speed is very fast.

It is a good idea to have one person cracking and another person picking out the nuts and putting them into a container.

I wish it were possible to get a small electric nutcracker. I have spent hours making google searches using terms such as  Almond huller, Almond cracker, nut sheller but with no success.  The cheapest machines cost over 5000 euros and are for industrial production.

There are also lots of free patents for nutcrackers on sites like this one
https://freepatentsonline.com/
But it would be necessary to have a big workshop to make one.

There would be a lot of demand for a domestic electric nutcracker for less than 500 euros espaecially in spain.
Someone should make one!!!

« Last Edit: August 20, 2011, 06:48:17 AM by John »