Building a machine is very much like cooking. You are taking simple things putting them together in such a way that the result is greater than the sum of its parts.
Next, Next Video: I awaken my ancient bloodline of the divine creators of our mortal plane and use my newfound unlimited power to create cocoa beans without husks
I use an old farmer blower (used to blow husks from wheat and other types of farm products) to remove that. Tho, that's cause i already own one, blow drier on a sieve with decently large eyes should work too, i s'pose.
I have a dust cyclone in my woodshop ..it's a smaller one that attaches to my shop vacc....it looks almost exactly like part of that apparatus he showed....(and the bag on the "end" .look like it was attached to one of the smaller capacity dust extractors...
I winnow my coffee beans on a piece of window screen set on top of a box fan that's resting on two lawn chair. If I have to do it inside, I use a second fan to blow the chaff out the window. Seems like it should work for cocoa beans.
It works but is ungodly messy. When using a fan, I do it outside and it looks like I got hit by a cocoa husk hurricane. Doing it inside like he is attempting to do is a recipe for disaster without a proper winnower.
The simplest method I have found for separating out two materials is putting an inlet and outlet on the lid of a bucket and putting it in line with a vacuum. The light particles continue on, but the heavy particles fall to the bottom. I have also used a thein baffle which works well when both parts are on the lighter side (sawdust for example), and they are much easier to make than a cyclone. Always fun to see what you are trying out.
Alex~I'm deeply impressed! Video posted 3 minutes ago. 302 views and 55 likes! You are indeed a lucky man (the hard work paying off kind of "lucky") and we, your fans are so grateful for you. Your hard work and dedication is recognized and revered. Thank you. Jenn 💖 a huge fan in Canada 🍁
There is a youtube channel by Aaron Sylvester in Grenada where they go through the chocolate making process from growing beans to making chocolate. They have an elaborate DIY winnowing machine made of pvc pipe and a vacuum but the video shows the principles of how the machine functions.
Helpful tip for making the text like the "subtitles" around the 1:50 mark is to have white text with a black outline. that contrast makes it so it can be read over ANY background.
Alex there's a cyclone dust collector that hooks up to a shop vac. Us woodworkers use it to separate the light sawdust from the heavier wood chips. I would bet that it could work to winnow your cocao beans. The one I saw was oneida cyclones I think
This Old Tony could likely build something that would do this. And it would be another very interesting collaboration. But you would have to do the initial design, of course. Great stuff, Alex, and thumbs up!
Alex, just use a hand han or a piece of paper to fan the top of the nib/husk mixture. Shake the pan and the lighter husks will rise to the top and get blown off by the fan.
A centrifugal cyclone separator like those used in some shop vacs might be able to separate the heavy beans from the light husk, but I would try a simple fan or a leaf blower first first.
This reminds me of how I take the husk off my peanuts, crush them up in a bag, pour into bottle with some vent flaps in the bottom for air flow and to move the nuts around, then put a vacuum on the top off the bottle and watch all the light flakes vanish
Sounds like you're making a fluidized bed! Check the falling velocity of the husk and the nib, that is, the velocity of upward air needed for the particle to be suspended in the air chute. Control the air such that it can blow the husks up and out, but the heavier nibs remain. Good luck and much love to you!!!
Perhaps a tube with a funnel at the top with another tube connected to a vacuum cleaner coming in at an angle could be used to separate the husks. We have such contraptions for separating leaves from blueberries here in Sweden.
I think you could build simple cyclone and connect it to the Y shape tube, where through long side you will throw (i do not know proper word) mix, and throuh the branch you must connect cyclone with vacuum. Light parts should fall down, while light will be sucked in cyclone. I use this method for separating cranberry and blueberry from the leaves
6 inch wide pipe, shopvac attached at the top. Cut a hole in the side of the pipe and attach a hopper for your cocoa, mount the pipe vertically somehow, leave the bottom completely open, place a collecting tray down there to catch the nibs. For more control, get a valve normally used for DIY central vac installations that use a shop vac as the power source (Can find those at your hardware store, ask an employee) so that you can adjust the amount of air the vacuum pulls through the apparatus. More airflow = heavier bits sucked into the shop vac More tube height = better ability to separate things that weigh very similar amounts More tube width = more capacity, but you will require exponentially more airflow as you go wider. I think a 6 inch pipe should be able to handle all the air a shop vac can move at a flow rate that won't suck up your nibs.
It's easy.. first you have to measure the resistance of the husks and nibs. Then you divide those values by their weight in relation to the humidity. Then you put everything in a stainless steel bowl and connect it to a flux capacitor, that you configurated with the calculated values. It's just a bit hard to get the plutonium for the flux capacitor.. the rest should be easy-peasy
Alex! Look up the Brazil Nut effect. If you have a mixture of particals of differing size's when vibrated the larger particals float to the top... Just as a quick experiment you could fill a tall glass with the husk nib mixture abd place it on top of your sander!
Hey Alex just wondering why can't you straighten it with water the heavier more dense seeds will just float to the bottom and the husk will stay on top then just scoop the husk with a spoon or small strainer
ok so, Dyson vacuums use a series of cones to separate particle sizes (they got the idea from the filtration methods that have been used for decades in mines). Perhaps something like that could work for winnowing? Either that or the principles for chromatography, where you basically send particles around a curve, and the heavier bits fly to the outside of the curve. Either way lol, I'm really enjoying this chocolate series, and I can't wait to see what you come up with! For me, I was intrigued by the wet grinding of the chocolate, so I would like to see the difference between wet ground raw chocolate and wet ground roasted chocolate.
I tried to build a winnowing machine out of a 5 gallon bucket and a bunch of PVC. Ended up purchasing a pre-fabricated winnower that I didn't have the tools to recreate. Before that, I was blowing the husks off my 2nd story apartment balcony and onto the sidewalk in Oakland. The sidewalk would stay crunchy for weeks.
Hi Alex I was recently rewatching some of your old videos and stumbled upon the " 5 courses 10$ menu ! Trader Joe's challenge " In this video u use a technique to separate squash seeds from the pulp which might be a solution to your problem: putting the whole thing in water The nibs , being more dense and heavy, will sink to the bottom and the husk will float on the suface
It won't work on these type of material Cocoa, like coffee bean and tea leaf Will release some of their property to water What's the point of buying super premium beans if you going to dilute it at the end
How about something simple... like a device similar to an air popcorn popper? Blow air upwards through the mixture, and based on the length of the vertical pipe and velocity of the airflow, you should be able to separate out the husks from the nibs.
make a box with a mesh bottom to allow air flow, pour in nibs/husk, put your box on a powerful fan shake the box with the fan on. Simple solution to an annoying problem. If you want to collect the husks so they don't make a mess just put a garbage bag on top of the box with some small holes to allow air flow but still collect the husk particles
I love these French conversations. I travel back 10 years in time to when I was still at university and suddenly I speak French again, lol. Or... well, understand it, at least.
If they have different densities you could separate them in a water bath. Preferably, a cold water bath so you don't extract any flavors from the nibs. I don't know a thing about chocolate making, just giving ideas.
NO!! Water is the absolute enemy when it comes to chocolate making. The nib WILL absorb water almost instantly and require an additional step to dry at a minimum. You will still end up with a tea though as some flavors will be extracted no matter what. Problem is I am pretty sure the nib floats too.
Alex, I'd recommend searching "seed cleaner" as a basis for your contraption. Basically screened trays at a slight downward angle that you can shake back and forth so the heavy nibs slowly slide down, while a fan blows the husks up and out. I'd imagine a tote bin with a hole and an adjustable fan blowing in the bottom corner, and a vacuum in the opposite top corner. Multiple passes are expected and normal. I grew up on a farm watching my dad and grandpa adjusting the fans and speed of the sieves of combine harvesters for wheat, barley, soy, etc. and the concept is identical
Seed cleaners are in fact the basis for most small scale cocoa winnowers. Instead of using a fan though, the most common technique is actually to use only a vacuum (shop vac) and pull the air through the husk/nibs as it is falling. The lighter husk gets pulled off into the vacuum leaving the nib to fall. Having the mixture bounce off obstacles on the down path helps to separate it out too. The key to the system is being able to adjust the amount of vacuum applied to the falling nib/husk mix.
Normally if it's not got anything to do with food-related items, using fluids would be a good way to separate things that are heavier or lighter than other things. Since separation can only be done by finding differing properties of two or more items, focusing on what makes those two items different is where you'll find your solution. Blowing horizontally on a vertical field of beans is an idea, but you can't really control the power or speed of the vertically flowing beans, making the process less accurate. I'd suggest you have a horizontal surface that lets you blow air in from below it with a diagonal roof above it that catches the lighter particles and forces them away and out of the equation. Easy to refill and test, just make sure you get the air power right. With the density of the beans and the lightness of the husks however, it shouldn't be too difficult to achieve.
Maybe you could try decanting? It’s used in chemistry. If you do some research it’s very simple. You basically use water to separate the two, since the husk are less dense than the nibs, the husk will probably float and the mobs will sink.
Next week on French Guy Cooking: I immigrated to South America, began cocoa farming labor force, recruited seasonal workers to militia, held coup d'etat, ceased government, became President for nine terms, established chocolate republic.
Hey alex, you can try tossing it like a tossing pasta in a pan. usually with rice here in indonesia but worth the try. Also we do it with a really big sift
While it's fun to build a machine to winnow things (looking forward to the next episode), it's not THAT hard to manually separate the husks from the cocoa nibs. If you gently press the roasted beans, they can come up almost unbroken or may be broken into 2-3 pieces which you can easily separate by hand. Agreed this method will take a little longer and doesn't involve power tools, it's totally doable.
Another one from coffee roasting experiments. Best joy I had was to cut the bottom off a 2l PET soft drink bottle and tape the top into the vacuum cleaner nozzle. Then use this as a giant scoop to suck up the combination of beans/nibs and husks. If you get the distance between the bottom of the bottle and the tray right, you'll hit a point where the nibs will form a fluid bed in the bottle and the husks will get pulled into the vac. Too high and you suck the nibs into the vacuum cleaner so be careful :)
Forgive my ignorance Alex but could you not vibrate it to make the husk rise to the top? It would be possible then to remove the majority without a more complex machine than a deep container and your orbital sander?
I have a recommendation. You know how cereal tends to separate when you shake it? How about putting the beans it all in a large container and attaching a motor with an unbalanced counterweight (aka your drill) and running it for a while (the vibration will shake the container and separate the denser parts from the lighter parts). Greetings from Germany!
Could you possible instead put them all into a big bowl and then shake like you're panning for gold? It would cause the husk to go to the top and nibs to go to the bottom (assuming that they have different densities and that the husks are less dense than the nibs).
"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the Universe" - Carl Sagan *video cuts* "What's up guys, it's Alex and today we're going to make our own miniature universe to truly make... Our own... EVERYTHING!" *video cuts and editing showing some spoilers* "Waaaaaaaah!?" "Ouiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii" "Oh no. No no no..." *jump cut* "... They were not supposed to nuke each other..."
It's actually quite simple, I would have thought. If you just have it in a bowl/basket and vibrate/shake it, the heavier particles sink to the bottom, and the lighter rise to the top.
You could use dry panning techniques for extracting the husks, the same technique used to separate gold from sand and dirt, u could build a machine for doing that
Search “Zig-Zag Seed Separator” on RUclips. It will work perfectly for you, very simple, and can be built for less than $40 USD... unless you have to buy a shop vacuum. You can adjust the power to match the weight of husk you are separating by how much you open the inlet baffle.
I built a powerful blower fan out of a broken air conditioner, hot glue and free cardboard shipping boxes when I was younger. God bless the USPS. Anyway it seems that's the scale of power you could use. Something between 50 and 100 CFM would make short work of this job. You could levitate the husks away into a filter inside a box then tweak the speed until it isn't also blowing the nibs away. Granted I am an American and excessive power sort of gets my juices flowing in precisely the stereotypical fashion you are imagining.
Wouldn't it help to dissolve or melt it? I think the inside would dissolve in water or oil, but the skin wouldn't. The same with melting. Then you could filter it.
I would just build a rotating drum with lifting baffles similar to a clothes dryer and point an air hose through it. If you regulate the air pressure properly, should do the trick nicely.
There is a pretty cheap and efficient solution to winnowing, a lot of bird people do it. You see, parrots eat the seeds but leave the husks in the feeder, so a lot of the uneaten seeds go to waste when you replace their food. So people came up with a box that has two tunnels and a fan that blows the husks away in the second compartment but lightweight seeds drop to the first one. Simple but it works. You would need some plywood a computer cooler and a few nails. Try Goodling "bird seed separator machine"
Well, since I am from the middle east I used to see ppl doing the "Winnoing" to the BULGUR🌾🌾 in the first steps of its making. By holding the crushed bulgur in a big bowl at their head's level then slowly let the grains drop from it (almost like you did with your hands), the air flow will help the separation and a fan would help alot with this too. But yeah as you said you have to do it outside because it is messy Good luck!
I always thought the best way to seperate chaff by hand was to have a broad bowl with the seed and husk, and to toss it gently in the air and catch it again. The moment where it is suspended above the bowl allows the wind to seperate chaff while maintaining control of the nibs.
@@addledhead Wow, that reminded me of my grandma😬. She did it this way. So yeah there are two methods, but yours is a bit hard for someone who never did it before. Take care (:
I spent some of my youth on a "living history" farm....there was a platform, (often doubling as a dance floor, and occasionally as a shearing floor)...that was always called "The Winnowing floor"...it was about 30'-40' across. freshly harvested wheat, was spread out to dry a bit, then threshed with a flail or wooden roller ....swept back up into a pile on corner closest to the windward, we would take a wide coal shovel full, and "loft" it into the air...the breeze would catch the chaff (the husks) and carry them further downwind than the heavier, denser grains. if you did it right, the two would have a pretty well defined separation.... one of the tasks I got tapped to do, was sweeping the chaff up and disposing of it, and pushing the grain back to the main pile so it could be "run again"....
Yo ! Top vidéos comme d'hab bro ;) tu peux peut être essayer de séparer la pellicule de du grain en plongeant les graines dans l'eau du coup peut être les particules vont flotter et le reste coulée puis ensuite tu sèche bien les grains .. c'est pas la meilleure des solutions off course mais ça peut fonctionner, let's try this 😉
@frenchguycooking Salut Alex, what about a fluidised bed, some kind of cone with a flat sieve on top, then a cylindrical part. In this cylindrical part the air flow must be regulated to allow the husk to be removed but the nibs to stay. Should work with vacuum on top of air from below. Widely used to separate ceramic powders in the lab. It's relatively simple, but it's for batches. The version with the vacuum would also resolve the messy problems. A+ Jérôme
Hi Alex! Although it's a little late for this advice - we do something like this in India a lot when trying to separate the peanut husk/skin from the peanuts themselves. What works in households is that you can place this in a big tray and kind of jerk it upwards in order to get all the particles to rise in the air. While this is happening, blow on it. It works perfectly!
Hi Alex, I enjoyed watching your new video! I’m using a regular juicer to crack the beans. It’s a really efficient method. As a inspiration I want to send you the link of the winnowed I use: shop.chocolatealchemy.com/collections/equipment/products/sylph-winnower Works great, still a bit messy but it’s not too bad. I winnowed quite a while with a hair dryer. Nibs and husks in a bowl, blow into the bowl and shake it a bit. But it’s creating a huge mess. Looking forward to what you come up with! Angi :)
The way that machine is layed out, there's no way it isn't using a cyclone. There's a stainless looking cone on the left of the machine that makes me think of the DIY cyclones you can buy on Amazon, which would be a pretty straightforward solution if it worked. EDIT: Alternatively, you could build one using a food grade 5 gallon bucket. I've done this for woodworking and there are many slight variations and tutorials people have come up with.
Alex just looks for opportunities to build some sort of machine. ♥️
Building a machine is very much like cooking. You are taking simple things putting them together in such a way that the result is greater than the sum of its parts.
Next video: I move to Ecuador and grow my own kakao
Next, Next Video: I awaken my ancient bloodline of the divine creators of our mortal plane and use my newfound unlimited power to create cocoa beans without husks
@@infamoussky22 I think he would have to be in a XianXia novel for that.
and the next video: I build an army and overthrow the government, become President for six terms and establish a chocolate republic.
@@infamoussky22 lnmtl
Best cacao in the world 🌍🇪🇨
So he told you to use a rolling pin to crush the husks, but not how to separate. 10/10 advice.
Step 1: Put the roasted beans in a bag.
Step 2: Crush the roasted beans with a rolling pin.
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit!
I use an old farmer blower (used to blow husks from wheat and other types of farm products) to remove that. Tho, that's cause i already own one, blow drier on a sieve with decently large eyes should work too, i s'pose.
toss it it behind a large fan
If Alex has to be told everything, he wouldn't have the joy of discovery. There where would the channel be?
Oh no he did ! In fact the second method comes from him 😃
I need to be told to "spread it like butter." What happened to your catch phrase? Great videos, as always!! Cheers.
It faded away with his name.
Very true - WHERE IS IT? WE'RE ALL WAITING FOR THE HOLLY SENTENCE! ;)
You should measure the real temperature of your oven. You will see huge jumps due to the incredibly primitive hysteresis regulation.
My oven at home is Horrible with this.
*hides bag under the jacket*
*walks suspiciously *
SO I'VE GOT THE BEANS
Look at cyclones of woodworkers. That might help separae light matrial fom heavy ones. And it can be contained.
Actually, this was what I was thinking too when I saw the RUclips video Alex was watching.
I have a dust cyclone in my woodshop ..it's a smaller one that attaches to my shop vacc....it looks almost exactly like part of that apparatus he showed....(and the bag on the "end" .look like it was attached to one of the smaller capacity dust extractors...
Ha, you beat me to it...same thought.
A cyclone is also utilised in coffee roasting to help remove chaff/husk from the roasted bean 👌🏼
@@andrewkroussoratsky7737 That only happens if the husk wasn't removed in processing the green beans.
I winnow my coffee beans on a piece of window screen set on top of a box fan that's resting on two lawn chair. If I have to do it inside, I use a second fan to blow the chaff out the window. Seems like it should work for cocoa beans.
It works but is ungodly messy. When using a fan, I do it outside and it looks like I got hit by a cocoa husk hurricane. Doing it inside like he is attempting to do is a recipe for disaster without a proper winnower.
The simplest method I have found for separating out two materials is putting an inlet and outlet on the lid of a bucket and putting it in line with a vacuum. The light particles continue on, but the heavy particles fall to the bottom. I have also used a thein baffle which works well when both parts are on the lighter side (sawdust for example), and they are much easier to make than a cyclone.
Always fun to see what you are trying out.
Alex~I'm deeply impressed!
Video posted 3 minutes ago. 302 views and 55 likes!
You are indeed a lucky man (the hard work paying off kind of "lucky") and we, your fans are so grateful for you. Your hard work and dedication is recognized and revered. Thank you.
Jenn 💖 a huge fan in Canada 🍁
With your subtitles could you put a black stroke around the text? White text on a light reflective table is hard to read.
fluffy i Second that! Subtitles need to improve
@@HappyFluegel Alternatively, black text with a white border also works well
@@spinafire I'm an animal, I just go for yellow or green. you can drag youtube links into km player and change the subtitle style.
There is a youtube channel by Aaron Sylvester in Grenada where they go through the chocolate making process from growing beans to making chocolate. They have an elaborate DIY winnowing machine made of pvc pipe and a vacuum but the video shows the principles of how the machine functions.
Helpful tip for making the text like the "subtitles" around the 1:50 mark is to have white text with a black outline. that contrast makes it so it can be read over ANY background.
Alex there's a cyclone dust collector that hooks up to a shop vac. Us woodworkers use it to separate the light sawdust from the heavier wood chips. I would bet that it could work to winnow your cocao beans. The one I saw was oneida cyclones I think
This Old Tony could likely build something that would do this. And it would be another very interesting collaboration. But you would have to do the initial design, of course. Great stuff, Alex, and thumbs up!
Alex, just use a hand han or a piece of paper to fan the top of the nib/husk mixture. Shake the pan and the lighter husks will rise to the top and get blown off by the fan.
A centrifugal cyclone separator like those used in some shop vacs might be able to separate the heavy beans from the light husk, but I would try a simple fan or a leaf blower first first.
This reminds me of how I take the husk off my peanuts, crush them up in a bag, pour into bottle with some vent flaps in the bottom for air flow and to move the nuts around, then put a vacuum on the top off the bottle and watch all the light flakes vanish
I've never done it with chocolate, but if you fill a jar or a bucket with everything and give it a subtle shake, the husk should rise to the top
Sounds like you're making a fluidized bed! Check the falling velocity of the husk and the nib, that is, the velocity of upward air needed for the particle to be suspended in the air chute. Control the air such that it can blow the husks up and out, but the heavier nibs remain. Good luck and much love to you!!!
Perhaps a tube with a funnel at the top with another tube connected to a vacuum cleaner coming in at an angle could be used to separate the husks. We have such contraptions for separating leaves from blueberries here in Sweden.
I love that you share the adventure involved in the process of making food. Thank you for being so entertaining and informative.
I think you could build simple cyclone and connect it to the Y shape tube, where through long side you will throw (i do not know proper word) mix, and throuh the branch you must connect cyclone with vacuum. Light parts should fall down, while light will be sucked in cyclone. I use this method for separating cranberry and blueberry from the leaves
6 inch wide pipe, shopvac attached at the top. Cut a hole in the side of the pipe and attach a hopper for your cocoa, mount the pipe vertically somehow, leave the bottom completely open, place a collecting tray down there to catch the nibs. For more control, get a valve normally used for DIY central vac installations that use a shop vac as the power source (Can find those at your hardware store, ask an employee) so that you can adjust the amount of air the vacuum pulls through the apparatus.
More airflow = heavier bits sucked into the shop vac
More tube height = better ability to separate things that weigh very similar amounts
More tube width = more capacity, but you will require exponentially more airflow as you go wider. I think a 6 inch pipe should be able to handle all the air a shop vac can move at a flow rate that won't suck up your nibs.
How about instead of wind using static electricity? Instead of pushing away you'd be pulling the husks. Less mess.
Daniel F. Lol, good idea. Dunno how efficient that would be (?)
It's easy.. first you have to measure the resistance of the husks and nibs. Then you divide those values by their weight in relation to the humidity. Then you put everything in a stainless steel bowl and connect it to a flux capacitor, that you configurated with the calculated values. It's just a bit hard to get the plutonium for the flux capacitor.. the rest should be easy-peasy
Or just but some chocolate seems the easiest option
Alex! Look up the Brazil Nut effect.
If you have a mixture of particals of differing size's when vibrated the larger particals float to the top... Just as a quick experiment you could fill a tall glass with the husk nib mixture abd place it on top of your sander!
Hey Alex just wondering why can't you straighten it with water the heavier more dense seeds will just float to the bottom and the husk will stay on top then just scoop the husk with a spoon or small strainer
I actually love your RUclips channel
If the next episode was a movie, I would title it:
"Cocoa Nibs: The Winnowing"
"This time it's -personal- automated"
ok so, Dyson vacuums use a series of cones to separate particle sizes (they got the idea from the filtration methods that have been used for decades in mines). Perhaps something like that could work for winnowing? Either that or the principles for chromatography, where you basically send particles around a curve, and the heavier bits fly to the outside of the curve.
Either way lol, I'm really enjoying this chocolate series, and I can't wait to see what you come up with! For me, I was intrigued by the wet grinding of the chocolate, so I would like to see the difference between wet ground raw chocolate and wet ground roasted chocolate.
Very interesting thought 👍
Alex bro when you saw that guy with the machine separating nibs you said hmhmhmm i laughed so much. You knew you were screwed for a second.
I tried to build a winnowing machine out of a 5 gallon bucket and a bunch of PVC. Ended up purchasing a pre-fabricated winnower that I didn't have the tools to recreate.
Before that, I was blowing the husks off my 2nd story apartment balcony and onto the sidewalk in Oakland. The sidewalk would stay crunchy for weeks.
Hi Alex
I was recently rewatching some of your old videos and stumbled upon the " 5 courses 10$ menu ! Trader Joe's challenge "
In this video u use a technique to separate squash seeds from the pulp which might be a solution to your problem: putting the whole thing in water
The nibs , being more dense and heavy, will sink to the bottom and the husk will float on the suface
It won't work on these type of material
Cocoa, like coffee bean and tea leaf
Will release some of their property to water
What's the point of buying super premium beans if you going to dilute it at the end
Ignores alarm to wake up. Gets notification for a Alex video. Je suis réveillé! Je suis debout!
How about something simple... like a device similar to an air popcorn popper? Blow air upwards through the mixture, and based on the length of the vertical pipe and velocity of the airflow, you should be able to separate out the husks from the nibs.
make a box with a mesh bottom to allow air flow, pour in nibs/husk, put your box on a powerful fan shake the box with the fan on. Simple solution to an annoying problem. If you want to collect the husks so they don't make a mess just put a garbage bag on top of the box with some small holes to allow air flow but still collect the husk particles
Great series, can't wait for the next video.
I love these French conversations. I travel back 10 years in time to when I was still at university and suddenly I speak French again, lol. Or... well, understand it, at least.
If they have different densities you could separate them in a water bath. Preferably, a cold water bath so you don't extract any flavors from the nibs.
I don't know a thing about chocolate making, just giving ideas.
NO!! Water is the absolute enemy when it comes to chocolate making. The nib WILL absorb water almost instantly and require an additional step to dry at a minimum. You will still end up with a tea though as some flavors will be extracted no matter what. Problem is I am pretty sure the nib floats too.
Alex, I'd recommend searching "seed cleaner" as a basis for your contraption. Basically screened trays at a slight downward angle that you can shake back and forth so the heavy nibs slowly slide down, while a fan blows the husks up and out. I'd imagine a tote bin with a hole and an adjustable fan blowing in the bottom corner, and a vacuum in the opposite top corner. Multiple passes are expected and normal.
I grew up on a farm watching my dad and grandpa adjusting the fans and speed of the sieves of combine harvesters for wheat, barley, soy, etc. and the concept is identical
Seed cleaners are in fact the basis for most small scale cocoa winnowers. Instead of using a fan though, the most common technique is actually to use only a vacuum (shop vac) and pull the air through the husk/nibs as it is falling. The lighter husk gets pulled off into the vacuum leaving the nib to fall. Having the mixture bounce off obstacles on the down path helps to separate it out too. The key to the system is being able to adjust the amount of vacuum applied to the falling nib/husk mix.
6:55 oh my gosh I laughed so hard. Did NOT expect that!!
Normally if it's not got anything to do with food-related items, using fluids would be a good way to separate things that are heavier or lighter than other things. Since separation can only be done by finding differing properties of two or more items, focusing on what makes those two items different is where you'll find your solution.
Blowing horizontally on a vertical field of beans is an idea, but you can't really control the power or speed of the vertically flowing beans, making the process less accurate. I'd suggest you have a horizontal surface that lets you blow air in from below it with a diagonal roof above it that catches the lighter particles and forces them away and out of the equation. Easy to refill and test, just make sure you get the air power right. With the density of the beans and the lightness of the husks however, it shouldn't be too difficult to achieve.
The cut you make at 7:54 is my humor.
Maybe you could try decanting? It’s used in chemistry. If you do some research it’s very simple. You basically use water to separate the two, since the husk are less dense than the nibs, the husk will probably float and the mobs will sink.
Look up methods for dry gold panning! They should work pretty well for the winnowing I think.
What a beautiful chocolate shop!
Next week on French Guy Cooking:
I immigrated to South America, began cocoa farming labor force, recruited seasonal workers to militia, held coup d'etat, ceased government, became President for nine terms, established chocolate republic.
Love all the series, but id love a cooking video once in a while, maybe some classic french recipes :)
Hey alex, you can try tossing it like a tossing pasta in a pan.
usually with rice here in indonesia but worth the try.
Also we do it with a really big sift
While it's fun to build a machine to winnow things (looking forward to the next episode), it's not THAT hard to manually separate the husks from the cocoa nibs. If you gently press the roasted beans, they can come up almost unbroken or may be broken into 2-3 pieces which you can easily separate by hand. Agreed this method will take a little longer and doesn't involve power tools, it's totally doable.
Another one from coffee roasting experiments. Best joy I had was to cut the bottom off a 2l PET soft drink bottle and tape the top into the vacuum cleaner nozzle. Then use this as a giant scoop to suck up the combination of beans/nibs and husks. If you get the distance between the bottom of the bottle and the tray right, you'll hit a point where the nibs will form a fluid bed in the bottle and the husks will get pulled into the vac. Too high and you suck the nibs into the vacuum cleaner so be careful :)
Thanks for the link 🙂
Really looking forward to seeing your winnowing contraption in the future 😄
I would've tried to put them in a tall and narrow glass/container/jar and vibrante it.
Just like with cereals/nuts they should separate.
'Liked' because you left the "I didn't get the timing right" shot in.
Forgive my ignorance Alex but could you not vibrate it to make the husk rise to the top? It would be possible then to remove the majority without a more complex machine than a deep container and your orbital sander?
Perhaps something along the lines of gold panning or those vortex vacuum cleaners?
i think you can separate them by shaking them long in a container by means of the muesli effect
had a strange thought, could you sous vide the beans, you could change the bean chemistry with out the heat perhaps ?
This may sound really dumb. But could you put them on a dry towel and lift one end and the nibs will roll where as the husks stick to the towel?
I have a recommendation. You know how cereal tends to separate when you shake it?
How about putting the beans it all in a large container and attaching a motor with an unbalanced counterweight (aka your drill) and running it for a while (the vibration will shake the container and separate the denser parts from the lighter parts).
Greetings from Germany!
1:50 close your eyes. Just hear this weird mixtures of sound coming to you 😂
Could you possible instead put them all into a big bowl and then shake like you're panning for gold? It would cause the husk to go to the top and nibs to go to the bottom (assuming that they have different densities and that the husks are less dense than the nibs).
Next video: Turning store bought chocolate back into cocoa beans!
"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the Universe" - Carl Sagan
*video cuts*
"What's up guys, it's Alex and today we're going to make our own miniature universe to truly make... Our own... EVERYTHING!"
*video cuts and editing showing some spoilers*
"Waaaaaaaah!?"
"Ouiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii"
"Oh no. No no no..." *jump cut* "... They were not supposed to nuke each other..."
Use water to separate heavy parts from light ones
Don’t worry, separating those skins is literally the hardest part of making chocolate.
Matthias Wandel has made some wood based machines that work on colecting dust particles. Maybe he could shed a light on this?
Get one of those air popcorn machines, disable the heating element, then use it to blow out the husks into a bowl.
Some air coffee roasters can blow air without heat.
It's actually quite simple, I would have thought. If you just have it in a bowl/basket and vibrate/shake it, the heavier particles sink to the bottom, and the lighter rise to the top.
You could use dry panning techniques for extracting the husks, the same technique used to separate gold from sand and dirt, u could build a machine for doing that
Search “Zig-Zag Seed Separator” on RUclips. It will work perfectly for you, very simple, and can be built for less than $40 USD... unless you have to buy a shop vacuum. You can adjust the power to match the weight of husk you are separating by how much you open the inlet baffle.
Came here to say this -- exactly the DIY machine you're looking for... Simple to build, measurable and repeatable.
I built a powerful blower fan out of a broken air conditioner, hot glue and free cardboard shipping boxes when I was younger. God bless the USPS. Anyway it seems that's the scale of power you could use. Something between 50 and 100 CFM would make short work of this job. You could levitate the husks away into a filter inside a box then tweak the speed until it isn't also blowing the nibs away.
Granted I am an American and excessive power sort of gets my juices flowing in precisely the stereotypical fashion you are imagining.
Amazing keep up the great work Alex
Wouldn't it help to dissolve or melt it? I think the inside would dissolve in water or oil, but the skin wouldn't. The same with melting. Then you could filter it.
You should make a second channel specifically for engineering, I would watch.
En vrai j’aime trop ta chaîne et surtout ton accent 😂👍👍
Brother !
Alex, I love you and watch religiously. But I have to ask.. where is our finale for the croissant series!?! ☹️☹️☹️
first!!🙋♂️🙋♂️
wow!! interesting cocoa😋😋
thank you for sharing 👍👍
from korea 🇰🇷🇰🇷🇰🇷
I would just build a rotating drum with lifting baffles similar to a clothes dryer and point an air hose through it. If you regulate the air pressure properly, should do the trick nicely.
Yes! A centrifugation as we use In chemistry
@@Martambarr just some basic engineering/physics. Shouldn't be terribly hard to build, either.
Isnt it easier to lightly crush each bean and remove the comple husk? Leaving the bean intact. Thats what i always do
Vacuum cleaner (I saw u had one) sealed box with vents at bottom, and strainer dish? can they get wet? the light pieces might float. Great vids!
Won’t you take me to that funkiest of places, cocoatown?
Wouldn't the husk float in water? Or a heavier liquid? Like water with salt or some sort of solute?
Air popcorn popper without the heating element
I love this guy.
Achei seu vídeo muito top!!! Parabéns.... quero aprender mas sobre chocolate, aqui no Brasil temos muito cacau de excelência!!!
Grande abraço!!!!!
There is a pretty cheap and efficient solution to winnowing, a lot of bird people do it. You see, parrots eat the seeds but leave the husks in the feeder, so a lot of the uneaten seeds go to waste when you replace their food. So people came up with a box that has two tunnels and a fan that blows the husks away in the second compartment but lightweight seeds drop to the first one. Simple but it works. You would need some plywood a computer cooler and a few nails. Try Goodling "bird seed separator machine"
I'm still so thrown off by not seeing alex french guy cooking.. I miss the name
I'm still a the beginning but isn't 180-150°C too much hot for a "gentle" roasting ? i'm roasting my cocoa beans at 110-120 and it work pretty well
cant you separate it by putting them in a bottle and then shake it since bigger part goes down and smaller pieces goes up?
And thus was invented the Dyson Winnow Maker. No… I said "winnow." Winnow!… please, stop crying.
Disclaimer: no widows were made in the creation of this chaffing comment.
use vibrations, it would separate the heavy stuff from the light stuff.
Well, since I am from the middle east I used to see ppl doing the "Winnoing" to the BULGUR🌾🌾 in the first steps of its making. By holding the crushed bulgur in a big bowl at their head's level then slowly let the grains drop from it (almost like you did with your hands), the air flow will help the separation and a fan would help alot with this too. But yeah as you said you have to do it outside because it is messy
Good luck!
I always thought the best way to seperate chaff by hand was to have a broad bowl with the seed and husk, and to toss it gently in the air and catch it again. The moment where it is suspended above the bowl allows the wind to seperate chaff while maintaining control of the nibs.
@@addledhead
Wow, that reminded me of my grandma😬. She did it this way. So yeah there are two methods, but yours is a bit hard for someone who never did it before.
Take care (:
I spent some of my youth on a "living history" farm....there was a platform, (often doubling as a dance floor, and occasionally as a shearing floor)...that was always called "The Winnowing floor"...it was about 30'-40' across. freshly harvested wheat, was spread out to dry a bit, then threshed with a flail or wooden roller ....swept back up into a pile on corner closest to the windward, we would take a wide coal shovel full, and "loft" it into the air...the breeze would catch the chaff (the husks) and carry them further downwind than the heavier, denser grains. if you did it right, the two would have a pretty well defined separation.... one of the tasks I got tapped to do, was sweeping the chaff up and disposing of it, and pushing the grain back to the main pile so it could be "run again"....
Do one of the two components float and the other sinks...?
Yo ! Top vidéos comme d'hab bro ;) tu peux peut être essayer de séparer la pellicule de du grain en plongeant les graines dans l'eau du coup peut être les particules vont flotter et le reste coulée puis ensuite tu sèche bien les grains .. c'est pas la meilleure des solutions off course mais ça peut fonctionner, let's try this 😉
@frenchguycooking
Salut Alex,
what about a fluidised bed, some kind of cone with a flat sieve on top, then a cylindrical part. In this cylindrical part the air flow must be regulated to allow the husk to be removed but the nibs to stay. Should work with vacuum on top of air from below. Widely used to separate ceramic powders in the lab. It's relatively simple, but it's for batches. The version with the vacuum would also resolve the messy problems.
A+ Jérôme
2:04 "Got the beans."
Hi Alex! Although it's a little late for this advice - we do something like this in India a lot when trying to separate the peanut husk/skin from the peanuts themselves. What works in households is that you can place this in a big tray and kind of jerk it upwards in order to get all the particles to rise in the air. While this is happening, blow on it. It works perfectly!
Hi Alex,
I enjoyed watching your new video! I’m using a regular juicer to crack the beans. It’s a really efficient method. As a inspiration I want to send you the link of the winnowed I use:
shop.chocolatealchemy.com/collections/equipment/products/sylph-winnower
Works great, still a bit messy but it’s not too bad. I winnowed quite a while with a hair dryer. Nibs and husks in a bowl, blow into the bowl and shake it a bit. But it’s creating a huge mess.
Looking forward to what you come up with!
Angi :)
The way that machine is layed out, there's no way it isn't using a cyclone. There's a stainless looking cone on the left of the machine that makes me think of the DIY cyclones you can buy on Amazon, which would be a pretty straightforward solution if it worked.
EDIT: Alternatively, you could build one using a food grade 5 gallon bucket. I've done this for woodworking and there are many slight variations and tutorials people have come up with.