Equipment manufacturers claim that cone nutcrackers can work without prior calibration of the nut: the nut falling into the cone plates remains at a height corresponding to its size and does not crack when the plates are compressed. In fact, the nut cracker pierces the nut shell and does not damage the kernel. This is an important advantage, since the whole kernel (“butterfly”) has the highest value on the market and allows you to earn more on the same volume of nuts.
So why buy walnut calibrator before using cone industrial nutcrackers?
If the nut is very different in size, part of the nut may remain uncrack, or the crack will be too strong and the kernel will be damaged. When processing a walnut of approximately the same size, the percentage of under-cracking or cracking will be minimal, therefore, at the initial stages of processing, they often save on the calibrator.
Also, cone nutcrackers have a fine-tuning function - that is, knowing the caliber of the nut, you can adjust the nutcracker to the desired size. This setting will increase the output of the whole kernel to the maximum.
At the world's largest walnut processing enterprises, sizing is a mandatory step, despite the fact that all walnuts are harvested from the same orchard and often the same variety. Corporations are investing a lot of money in the cultivation of high-quality nuts, the purchase and maintenance of equipment, and they want to get the maximum benefit. In the realities of the Ukrainian market, where most of the walnut comes from the population - of different quality, size, moisture, hardness and often off-grade, sizing should take a special place, especially when processing walnuts to get ½ (butterfly).