h a l f b a k e r yMy hatstand runneth over
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The chief of MaxCo industries has not been having a festive time
this
year, as he has been frustrated by problems with his nuts.
Hazelnuts are all well and good, and can generally be opened in
such
a way as the leave the nut satisfyingly intact. Almonds are a little
trickier, but generally
doable. Opening walnuts without mangling
the meat is a tremendous challenge, which is why the Americans
invented pecans as a sort of "training walnut". Brazil nuts are a
gamble - some just leap out of their shells in one piece, whereas
others cling to every shell-shard and can only be retrieved in
dismembered fragments.
Many nut-cracking weapons have been devised to ease the process,
but none is entirely satisfactory. Regardless of the nut and
nutcracker in question, the shelling process is tedious, interrupts
the
flow of food, and gets in the way of instant gratification.
Obviously,
one could buy packets of shelled nuts, but somehow this seems
wrong.
Fortunately, those ingenious chappies at MaxCo have addressed
the
concerns of their Glorious Leader. Nut-shelling problems begone!
Away with nut-extraction-related frustration! Nut-meat
fragmentation woes away!
The MaxCo Nutter Mark II (which is totally unlike the Nutter Mark
I,
for which the lawsuits are almost resolved and, in any case, were
entirely malicious) comes in a sleek, elegant packing crate.
Simply
connect the three-stage compressor to any convenient source of
petrol, attach the NutMatic chamber, check all safety valves and
connections, and you're ready for a nut-based pleasurefest.
First, place your nuts (up to 3kg total; contents may settle) in the
NutMatic chamber, and screw down the lid. Close the clamping
ring,
lock the T-Bar, engage interlocks, screw down pressure-rings A
and
B, ensure pin C is fully engaged, and close the safety cover.
Switch on the compressor, and ensure that the pressure on the
NutMatic guage rises steadily to about 150 atmospheres, at which
point it should stabilise.
Set the NutMatic timer to 4 hours (for almonds or brazil nuts), or
12
hours (for hazelnuts, walnuts, pecans), and wait for equilibration
to
take place.
At the end of the allotted time, raise the safety-cover from the
large
red button marked "Sudden Pressure Release". Place ear
protectors
over ears. Press button.
In under second, the pressure in the NutMatic chamber will be
released, leaving each intact nut full of 150 atmospheres of air
pressure in its meat/shell space. In a further 1-2 milliseconds,
each
nut will burst with a satisfyingly loud crack, simultaneously
shedding
several sharp shell shards successively.
Leave the NutMatic chamber closed for a further 4-12 hours, to
ensure that any unopened nuts have depressurized fully.
Suitable for walnuts, pecans, almonds, Brazil nuts and Macadamia
nuts. Not suitable for children.
Not quite self-shelling
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050825/
but at one point, these nuts do shell their own forward trench line, IIRC. [pertinax, Dec 29 2008]
[link]
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I'm not convinced you won't be making peanut butter on the half shell, but bun just in case. |
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I'm assuming that the nut meat itself contains no air-spaces.
There may be an issue with atmospheric nitrogen dissolving
in the nut meat (in which case your nuts would get the
bends on decompression), but MaxCo has a team of people
who are paid explicitly to ignore such issues. |
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//NutMatic// Does this therefore produce a substance that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike nuts? |
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BTW there would appear to be 2 promised buns above and only one + vote. Have a de-pressurised croissant from me to make up for it. |
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I want to see what happens to a coconut. |
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That experiment has been done, 2fries, as you would have
known if you'd watched the news. |
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//[insert testicle pun here]// |
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Could I insert a 'friendly fire' gag there, instead? |
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And there I was thinking large retailers leveraging prime "real-estate" in their stores was crazy. |
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Rapid decompression of small items, at last the n-prize falls into place.. |
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Yes, but tracking them for 9 orbits would be the problem.... |
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Only nine? Put them thar sqwirrals back in th' cage Billy-bawb, we gonna youse tha' rakooons. |
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How could anybody bone this? It's one of the best ideas I've
seen on HB and it might be my summer project. |
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He has the magic sword and the secret birthmark; ladies
and gentlemen, at long last we have found him, the King of
the Nuts. Long live the King! |
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You should try cracking a hickory nut some time. It belongs to the same family as pecans and walnuts and is quite tasty, but its shell is harder, and its innards are more convoluted. I have serious doubts that even this procedure can extract a whole hickory nut. |
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//He has the magic sword and the secret
birthmark// Sadly, the latter is on the former. |
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//You should try cracking a hickory nut some
time.// The hickory "nut" is not actually a true nut
in the botanical sense (nor are peanuts, for
instance). The hickory "nut" is, in fact, technically a
mammal. |
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How can that be? It's coconuts that have milk. |
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Only in the countries where they don't have water. |
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Well, that's why they need kings. We should count
ourselves lucky to have our own. |
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For those of us who aren't into this newfangled fancy
technology, would a popcorn hammer work just as well? |
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Also... I suspect that the amount of cooking time
necessary could be vastly reduced with the addition of
an appropriate solvent (CO2 or H2O come to mind) to
force into the nuts, and a heat source to ensure that the
solvent is at an appropriate temperature for maximum
diffusion through the wall of the nut. |
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Last but not least... why do you power your three stage
compressor with petrol, when electricity, natural gas,
propane, etc. could just as easily run it? For that
matter, suppose I've rigged up a hydroelectric dam, or a
wind turbine, with a power take-off... |
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