Hulling/Shelling Equipment
Shear Roll with Hard Shell Cracker
The inhull/inshell almonds are introduced into the first stage hard shell cracker with a clearance setting to shell or crack the largest size almonds with a minimum of breakage. Hard shell crackers are built with two adjustable steel corrugated rolls that rotate towards each other.
Directly below the hard shell cracker is a shear roll with a rubber roller and belt. As the almonds pass through the rubber shear roll the cracked shell will be removed from the meat, If the almond shell is not sufficiently cracked to dropout the meat the cracked inshell almond continues to the next stage automatically.
Together operators sample the discharged product from both machines to maximize separation without producing chip & scratch almond meats. Hard shell crackers are available in widths of 30" and 42". Shear rolls are available in widths of 36" and 48".
Classifier Deck with Aspiration
The shelled product (meat and shell) and unshelled discharges from the shear roll onto a classifier deck. RMC classifier decks are designed to produce three separate cuts; meats, inshell and inhull.
The first half of the classifier decks is assembled with a meat screen to sift almond meats and pee-wee inshell. The last half of the classifier is assembled with an adjustable perforated screen designed to capture the inshell that was produced from the cracker/shear roll unit above. Operator's inspect and adjust the perforated screen using a hydraulic hand pump that is mounted off to the side of the classifier deck.
Loose hull and inhull product carry over the classier deck and pass into the air column of an aspirator. By sizing the product discharge from the cracker/shear roll unit, the aspirator can efficiently separate loose hulls from the hulling system and reduce foreign material in the meat clean up system.
