Re:(macadamia nuts) Cracking macadamia nuts (with a C-clamp - sharing info)


[just thought a tropic topic of macadamia nuts might be
appropriate]

On Mon, 18 Feb 2008, Maren at google wrote:

Hi all,

thought I want to share this: After my sister in law
told me that they are much easier to crack along the
equators than along the poles (which I found is
true), I found that when you get the occasional very
hard to crack one (I got away from using vise grips
and use a C-camp now), putting the handle down on the
floor (you may want to use some layer of paper to not
damage the floors) and pushing down on the "C" of the
clamp will usually do it. You may have to turn it
over and repeat. Being one for multi-use tools
anyway, for me this most certainly beats all the high
priced and out of stock macadamia nut crackers. As we
probably still have a lot of macadamia nuts without
buyers here on the Big Island, that's one way of
cracking them.

Aloha, Maren

When I was a kid I broke the nut with a hammer. But
IIRC the nut doesn't taste too good when it's raw. I
would think that one of those pliers with compouded
handle might work better. The mechanical advantage of
the pliers is increase by the levers on the handles.
Don't know if you could get the pliers jaws wide enough
to engulf a macadamia nut. Definitely a vise or clamp
seems better.

.