Oct 12, 2012

Texas Nutcracker

So this post doesn't concern a Christmas ballet to remember the Alamo or anything. We're talking a different kind of nut cracker... pecans to be exact.

Our new pecan cracker came in!!


We ordered it online here and I have actually been stalking the tracking number to see when it would arrive in the mail. It's here, and we love it.


It is called Texas Nut Sheller "York," and I have no idea what the 'york' stands for. But it is much more industrial than our original crackers...



I mean it kind of looks like our new cracker is a shark or something trying to eat our old little cracker... I don't know what we were thinking with the small one.  As a rule follower, I flipped the package over the read the instructions. They were severely lacking.


Lucky for us, we had watching this little video before buying the great Texas nut cracker. At first I thought it was funny that someone would have a video cracking pecans on YouTube. Then after, getting the "no instructions box" I headed back to the video.  It's informative, but here's the run down from our side of things.

First you just clip off one end of the pecan, as shown, lol. The cracker is spring loaded so that it doesn't snap too hard, which comes in handy later (because I am soooo strong.)


You just clip off the very end, trying not to clip into the actual 'meat' of the pecan goodness, but making a little hole.


Then repeat with the other side. Simple.


Okay then you just slip the whole pecan inside the little cracker and squeeze. See how it's not actually in the teeth. And it cracks it. This is where the spring loaded action comes in. With our old cracker I had to squeeze so hard that once I cracked the shell I'd crush the pecan inside! You know, like a defensive tackle who can't stop rushing the quarterback and runs into him after he lets go of the ball and gets a penalty for it #toomuchfootball


So the spring in the new cracker allows tons of strength for the shell cracking and then eases up immediately to keep the pecan 'meat' in tact. I was really really impressed. There's kind of a finesse to the whole thing, but it's real easy to learn.


Then you just carefully remove the cracked shell from around the pecan center. There are two halves to the pecan and there's a little shell like thing separating the two halves. So it helps to go ahead and pull that out. You don't eat that... it tastes like bark.


So there ya have it. The latest addition to the Hess House. Our Texas Nut Cracker, and actually, we got TWO ;)

Happy Pecan Season. Gotta beat the squirrels to 'em.

10 comments:

  1. I'm glad to hear you got them because I was comparing nutcrackers when I saw what you were using and I thought about ordering you the ones you got!
    From the looks of those sagging branches, I think you and the squirrels will have plenty to enjoy!
    JH

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for your post which is truly informative for us and we will surely keep visiting this website.Thanks for the information. We are also in same industry and welcome you to visit our website. Thanks for the information.

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  3. Thanks for your post which is truly informative for us and we will surely keep visiting this website.Thanks for the information. We are also in same industry and welcome you to visit our website. Thanks for the information

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  4. Thanks for your post which is truly informative for us and we will surely keep visiting this website.Thanks for the information. We are also in same industry and welcome you to visit our website. Thanks for the information.

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  8. The original "Texan Nut Sheller" (made in San Angelo, Texas) is an engineering marvel and the modern knock-offs are hopefully comparable (though the relatively few negative reviews on Amazon nonetheless indicates otherwise). The thing is, nobody uses these shellers properly. As the name implies, these aren't meant to be used as pecan crackers--they're SHELLERS! My wife and I just received two original "Texan" models bought off of eBay for $15 for the pair (each was in perfect condition, one including its original box). The "toothed" blade edges have a concave profile and the blades themselves are mounted at about a 30 degree angle. When the handles are squeezed, the blades don't come together. Now think about all of that for a moment... If the blades were only for snipping the ends of the pecans, why would they need to be toothed, mounted at an angle, have a concave profile and not come together? Yes, you cut off the ends of the pecans using the blades but you don't then crush the pecan in order to remove the shell! Instead, you simply "grab" roughly 20 - 30 degrees of pecan shell surface in the toothed blades, gently squeeze the handles and break off that section of shell... The end result is a much higher percentage of "halved" pecans (and not so much small, broken pieces). Now go forth and shell (not crack) pecans... ;-)

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  9. Me again. I just noticed in your instruction booklet it says "Just clip off the ends AND SIDES." See my prior post. ;-)

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  10. One more time... Here's the patent for the original invention by C.L. Harless of San Angelo, Texas: http://www.google.com/patents/US2651342. It provides some limited description on the use of the device. Funny thing, according to ancestry.com, Harless was a realtor and yet he clearly had more technical training just given how "out-of-the-box" his thinking was with respect to the current state of the art. Whereas all of the inventions cited in Harless' patent were meant to crush the pecan (in the hopes that the meat might emerge intact), the novelty of his invention was simply to "shell" it, thus virtually guaranteeing the intended outcome.

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