I have been using a manual meat grinder. You run the beans through with no Mincing plates in. they crack in the auger Chamber.

I'm not even using a shop vac -- just a regular old vacuum cleaner. There werethree mods I had to make to the Dust Deputy to get it to work as an effective winnower. First, you have tomake some kind of provision to get airflow through the bottom of the DD (I do this by placing a couple ofpieces of polycarbonate (1/2" x 1.5" x 18") between the top of the bucket and the lid -- it lets air flow into the bottom of the DD funnel). Second,you have to extend the exit funnel (I just built a quick extension funnel with poster-board and tape), and third, you want to restrict the airflow on the inlet side when you are feeding. Both of these adjustments serve to increase the verticalairspeedwhich helps to get the husks going up while notbeing so fast that the nibs don't go down...it'sa matter of experimenting a bit and making fine adjustments. Good luck!!!

Classifying after cracking and before winnowing is a great step to increase the efficiency of the winnowing process. I have done it manually as making (or buying) the screens is significantly less expensive than buying a vibratory screener from Kason, Russel-Finex, or elsewhere.

Brooklyn Cacao uses (or at least used; I haven't seen the winnower working close-up for over a year) the vibratory screener because the integrated cracker was over-cracking and cracking unevenly. Putting the entire mass into the winnower resulted in very low yields and/over very low throughput. Things may have changed in the last year in those last two regards, I don't know. I see they are now offering a multi-stage vortex winnower but at something like $70,000 (or so I have been told) I think there are far less expensive ways to achieve similar or greater throughput.

One key is to run as much classified material through the winnower at a time as possible. Constantly changing the settings (the amount of vacuum) leads to inefficiencies.

You want to scalp off the large pieces (only partially cracked, flats), then pass through all the fines (and the germ). Work with the "hearts" fraction.

You can also pre-classify before roasting and before cracking to achieve more consistent results.

For those who have used a dust deputy for winnowing, what horse power shop vac did you use? I am trying to set up now but am not getting enough upward airflow in my vortex to suck the husks upward into the second bucket. Thanks for your help.

Thanks David! That's very helpful, I've been looking into modifying a regular meat grinder, and it wasn't going to be easy. Would you be willing to share the battery-powered rotisserie drive and drive adaptor you find to work?

This is such a helpful hack, manual winnow feeding is not as much fun as it used to be

Thanks!

I am playing with designs for a winnower which pre classifies the mix and then passes into several gravity separation winnowers (classic down pipe with air draught type). I saw in one of Brooklyn Cacao's videos that they are using a gyratory (vibratory) sieve to classify, I imagine this is before putting the mix through the vortex winnower. Just wondering if anyone has any experience with these sieves? They look like they would be ideal for a winnower setup.

On the KitchenAid food grinder the auger goes through the bearing at the back end and floats free at the exit end, so it runs just fine without the plates in place.

I did find that the KitchenAid mixer, even on low speed, is faster than my winnower can keep up with so I either have to increase the capacity of my winnower (the best solution) or feed more slowly (the immediate solution). To accomplish the latter I found a $15 battery-powered rotisserie drive that is perfect -- I just have to make a drive adaptor to couple the drive to the food grinder. That's a much less expensive option than using a $600 mixer to drive your auger...

Hi David,

Great winnow feeder! I had been thinking about using a meat grinder for this purpose but have not been able to get around modifying the thick metal screen that holds the auger in place on all meat grinders. If this were kept in place the nibs and shells would backup into the machine and not exit. How do you keep the auger in place while at the same time removing the metal screen?

Many thanks for any suggestions!

Yes -but you don't necessarily need to make all the passes at the same time on the same day.

You can focus on the "hearts" fraction in a single pass, knowing that you're not getting the greatest yield. Collect the tails fraction (the heads pass is through a classifier) over a series of roast/crack/winnow steps, and then run several batches of tails through at once.

I think the mistake people make is that they think they have to do all the passes from a single roasting batch before they process the next roasting batch. You have to re-set the winnower for each pass.

Far more efficient if you run multiple batches through at the same setting.

Also - the feeding mechanism is what takes time if you're hand feeding the winnower. Fine some way to automate the feeding and you can get the process started and walk away from it. That's where you'll pick up efficiency after pre-classifying.

I see, I guess at the end of the day I am looking for more efficiency in the time category, but it does seem like all of these options will require multiple passes. Correct?

Steven -

As with everything, your mileage may vary and it all depends on your interest in tinkering and your skill levels. Even with the winnower off Chocolate Alchemy the yield will vary based on many factors - the cracker is just one of them (size variability and residual moisture level and roast level would be other). I would tell you to expect to make multiple passes to get the highest yield. How many passes will depend on your patience.

If you want to put something together yourself so that you can tinker and tune, then this approach works fairly well without requiring a whole bunch of mechanical or construction skills.

You may want to make multiple passes, you may want to pre-classify (or both).

That's the beauty of these approaches - you pick the level of patience you have various parts of the process and make your choices based on that.

All other things being equal, you're going to be able to get roughly the same efficiency out of these various approaches. The Crankandstein and the Champion juicer (as a cracker) each have their own advantages and drawbacks. You would tune your winnower (and process) to match the output of the cracker.

Is it efficient enough to get a crankendstien mill and the shop vac winnower off of chocolate alchemy? Or are these newer ideas going to be much more efficient. I am about to put a winnower together for my first time.

Rochelle -

Cracking on a small scale is a challenge most craft chocolate makers face.

Most people start with a Crankandstein . This machine, too has a reputation for over cracking, but it's one of the best solutions out there that you can buy.

John Nanci, over at Chocolate Alchemy, has been (pun intended) championing using the Champion juicer without the bottom screen as a cracker. (The link is to Amazon US.) From what I hear, people are pretty happy with it but it's not a barn burner in terms of throughput.

On this note I started a new discussion thread in the DIY group about two different approaches to building crackers that should be easy to do, relatively inexpensive, and, more importantly, adjustable.

As with any discussion on cracking and winnowing it's my experience that pre-classifying the output of the cracker before winnowing is one of the most effective techniques you have to increase yield. I have been recommending gold classifying screens designed to fit standard (food-safe) five-gallon buckets. With a little ingenuity these can be stacked, semi-automating the screening process.

I agree with Clay's numbers. Measured a different way, if I start with 10kg of roasted beans, Iestimate that somewhere around 8.8kg is the best ideal-case recovery (that assumes 88% nibs, 12% husk and germ). Starting with 10kg I usually end up with around 7.5kg of useable nibs after winnowing and germ removal -- that works out to about 85% recovery --15% is lost in the winnowing and germ separation processes.

Rochelle -

In Dave's single-stage vortex winnower, the majority of the fines will end up in the second bucket and not end up in the shop vac. But I don't think that's the question you are asking.

The percentage of dust (or fines) will depend mostly on the type of cracker you are using and something to do with the beans - variability in size, residual moisture content/roast. I use a multi-stage classifier to remove all of the fines before winnowing because I find it to be more efficient. But out of 10kg of beans I might get 50-200gr of dust, a mix of fine bean particles, mostly germ, and minute shell fragments.

no if you break the beans up too small the nibs all turn to dust

Hi Rochelle. By 'dust' do you mean husks?

do you know the percentage of dust you get?...

First 'production' run indicates that valves are going to be a 'must-have'. I had my flow rates tuned for manual feeding, which turns out to be slower than what the KitchenAid set up delivers, so now I'm having to adjust in order to get a clean separation again. The fun part, though, is just seeing that it's possible. I don't think I'd dedicate a KitchenAid to this task once we get up and going -- a small variable speed motor should do the trick for a lot less money.

Fun hack, David. This is turning out to be a real fun discussion.

Lol -- necessity really is the mother of invention! I'm happy to report that the proof-of-concept winnower feeder works! Here's a (very) short video: Winnower Feeder 092713

The feeder is a KitchenAid food grinder attachment sans the cutting blades and end cap. My "hopper" is a blender pitcher. I'll get cute later with the refinements, but it does look like a very inexpensive screw feeder (which is all this in without the blades) works really well. An added bonus is that the feed rate can be adjusted over a wide range using the KitchenAid speed settings.

I am really curious to know what Kitchen Aid mixer attachment you think would work. I've been looking at the idea of custom-crafting attachments for a variety of purposes, using the motor in the Kitchen Aid the way people use the motor in the Champion.

It occurs to me that something you might be able to do is incorporate a classifier into the second bucket. This would let the fines drop through while keeping the larger pieces - might help reduce the number of passes required. Of course, pre-classifying before you drop the nib into the winnower is another way to do that.

I wonder if there is also a way to "fluidize" the bed of nib that is waiting to drop into the first bucket using air being drawn through the system. This would mean you would not need a separate machine with a motor (the Kitchen Aid) (or a small vibratory motor) and the supply of nib would not "clog" the hopper. Sounds like a relatively straightforward thing to make.

OR - take a look at the BC machine, they use the vacuum to suck up the nib rather than pouring it A lot to be said for that approach.

Hi Ben -- I do think that adjusting the vacuum and the flow rates will result in better first-pass removal (even for a single stage system). I see challenges using a two stage DD system in that you need to ensure a certain upward airflow rate in both DDs in order to prevent the husks from falling to the bottom, so balancing the flows would be more of a challenge. I'd expect even more challenges using a three stage system. Once we get set up in our new leased space I should be able to start experimenting with improvements. Like I mentioned earlier, my first small victory will be in automating the feed so that I can go do something else while my system cracks and winnows -- very manual at the moment.

I'll definitely share anything I learn -- it's a fun problem to try to solve.

Hi David. Thanks for your video and input on this thread.

I was thinking of adding some pvc below the DD to extend the funnel a bit. The BC winnower has long tubes under each funnel, and you can see husk being sucked up through the left one.

I'd use an unmodified DD as the second stage to capture everything that was removed from the first one.

Have you tried adjusting the strength of the vacuum? I was thinking of adding a valve between the first and second DDs that would allow the airflow to be reduced. Is this what the valve to control the total flow that you mention would do? Or would that be on the inlet side (where the cracked beans enter)?

If I build one, I plan to use the champion to crack and feed the beans as I do with my current winnower.

One issue I see is that you can't see the winnowed nibs without lifting the lid.

Lastly, what about adding a third DD? The first would be tuned to do the first winnowing pass, the second would be tuned to capture the nibs that the first DD sucked up, and the third would be the unmodified DD to capture the husks before they enter the vacuum. This may be more effort than it's worth, but I really need something that will work in one pass.

...I do think that by addingtwo valves (oneto controlthe total flow rate and one to control theair flow throughthe bottom of the DD)and controlling the material feed rate you could get good separation in a single pass.Once I hard-plumb the system I'll add those controls -- right now it is a 'portable' system that gets assembled and disassembled every time I make a batch of chocolate...

I've been using the DD (it's my set-up in the video that Kane posted the link to) for the last year or so and am very happy with the results. I found it works best if you extend the cone by about 6" (I just taped a cardboard funnel I made to the bottom of the DD lid), you need to either cut a hole in the lid or, as I did, just put a spacer between the lid and the nib bucket, to allow for sufficient airflow up the DD, and you need to add a bucket between the DD and the vacuum to receive the husks and keep them from going into the vacuum. I get almost zero husks falling into the nibs, but I do suck some of the nibs up with the husks -- I run three passes with the husks and capture somewhere between 85 and 90% of the theoretical total (assuming about 88% nibs by weight in a typical bean). The whole set-up cost me about $100.

My next steps with it are to add a valve to adjust the inlet airflow, and to add an automatic feeder -- I found an attachment for my KitchenAid mixer that I think will do the job with a couple of minor adjustments -- I'm going to give that its first go this coming week.

I had forgotten all about that video.Thanks for posting it!

So it looks like the DD can be made to winnow by allowing airflow up through the bottom of the cyclone and adjusting the vacuum pressure. In the video, he had to run the cracked beans through the winnower three times, but hopefully it could be tuned to work in one pass.

Check out this video from another Chocolate Life member:

CSV -- Winnowing Cocoa Beans with the Dust Deputy.wmv

[ Moderator: I added the video here on TheChocolateLife. ]

This is the first winnower I ever built. There is a blog post and photos about it here on TheChocolateLife.

Based on all my experience using this PVC pipe device (with the pre-classifier method that Ben and I discuss elsewhere in this thread), I firmly believe that the zig-zag winnower is an overall better technique. In part because the process of air mixing, turbulence, and separation is visible.

This makes tuning a whole lot easier to understand.

Plus, I learned that whenever I am using a vacuum (e.g., a shop vac) some sort of vortex dust collector is a requirement to keep the vacuum from getting clogged.

Classifying is a great technique, and it can be used both pre- and post-winnowing. Getting all of the pieces into more or less the same size/mass for a pass makes the overall yields much higher (and, interestingly, the overall process faster).

I use a large mesh (1/4") to sieve the output of the cracker.

I then use a smaller mesh (1/10") to sieve out most of the fines.

Whole beans that don't go through the 1/4" mesh can be run though the cracker again. Pieces (usually long and skinny with shell attached) can be pushed through the mesh by hand.

The fraction that falls through the 1/10" mesh can be further separated to eliminate the small dust which is basically not usable. I collect the larger-sized fraction from several winnowing batches and winnow it all at once when I get a decent amount.

The medium-sized fraction (that passes through the 1/4" mesh but not through the 1/10" mesh) winnows very cleanly once the airflow is tuned properly.

Some beans crack & winnow better than others. For the others, I use this 1/4" gold sifting pan:

http://www.amazon.com/Gold-Sifting-Bottom-5gal-Bucket/dp/B008B0T5Z2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379979039&sr=8-1&keywords=gold+sifter+1%2F4%22

I put it on the bucket that the winnower feeds into to catch too-big pieces. It works great.

Hello.

I have been using the Champion for cracking but I am not so pleased. The major issue is the husk pieces can be quite large which then fall into the nibs. If I increase the vacuum then too many nibs are lost. I am considering adding a coarse screen to the exit of the Champion to catch the large pieces and then re-process those large pieces.

I have another bag of beans arriving this week so I will try this and report back.

Paul Picton

Ben -

The purpose of this group - DIY - is to encourage all sorts of experimentation on small equipment for the craft chocolate workshop. If you think you can rustle up something built from multiple dust deputies then you have a solution that other people will want to at least look at. So posting drawings (don't need to be plans), as well as photos and videos is always encouraged.

This above is an image from the Oneida web site showing two dust deputies plumbed in series. If you had valves to tune the air flow in the right places (as you start to outline above) then I think this is eminently do-able.

I encourage you to start a separate discussion to present your experimentation and link to it from this discussion.

One of the things that I'd like to see is working to create a large feed hopper for whatever winnower solution is adopted. That feed hopper could sit above the cracker and/or above the winnower.

One vessel I have been looking at for the feeder is 5 gallon water bottles. I'd cut the bottom off (and invert for use) as well as play with cutting the neck to widen the feed opening. 5 gallons is about 15-20kg of beans (whole / cracked). Water bottles are also cheap and, importantly, food safe. The other reason to go with a 5 gallon water bottle is that the dust deputies sit on 5 gallon buckets, so everything is sized appropriately.

Thanks Clay. Very interesting information. I currently use a dust deputy to collect the shells in a bucket between my winnower and shop vac.

From your comment, it sounds like the main problems with the vortex design are similar to most winnowers, specifically how to handle differently sized nibs & shell efficiently. It doesn't sound like the actual vortex separation aspect is the problem--the problem actually being one of feeding a consistent size to the winnower.*

If that's the case, it should be possible to modify a dust deputy to achieve a different separation than it currently achieves. My first thoughts on how to do this would be

• modify the length or width of the center tube in the DD
• add a valve to the bucket lid where the DD is mounted to allow a little airflow up through the DD from the bottom. It looks like the BC winnower does this.
• add a valve between the winnowing DD and the shell collection DD (which would be an unmodified DD) to allow for adjusting the strength of the vacuum on the winnowing DD. This would not be inline, but at a T to the main line to reduce the airflow being drawn from the winnowing DD.

The two valves would be somewhat similar in function to the Chocolate Alchemist design that I use.

I'm definitely interested in messing around with this. I have an absurdly small 'factory', so space is always at a premium. A winnower that could fit under a table would be incredibly useful for me.

-Ben

*I use a Champion juicer for cracking and have been pretty happy with the size consistency of the nibs that it produces. But the problem could also be solved as you say with post-cracking classification by size.

The dust deputy is not built for winnowing, it's a filter that collects dust and small particles that would otherwise get sucked into a shop vac and clog the fan, lowering the suction of the fan.

From personal experience I can tell you that the Brooklyn Cacao Vortex winnower does not work as advertised.

One reason is that the built-in cracker over-cracks the beans resulting in lots of size differentiation. This results in very inefficient winnowing unless you use the cracker as a cracker and then pre-classify and separately put the different fractions through the machine, altering the vacuum setting for each run.

At $35,000 this is obviously not an ideal situation - you want something that is basically fill it and forget it.

Now - the BC winnower is a two-stage device. You could theoretically add extra stages and handle the classification that way but that increases the complexity of engineering (the need to control the vacuum and votex precisely in each stage) and the cost.

It's a fun idea, hugely expensive for what it delivers, in part because of the cost of parts (lots of custom-blown glass).

FWIW - pre-classifying works extremely well and when it's used on conjunction with a zig-zag design, ( http://www.thechocolatelife.com/video/diy-seedcleaner )throughput and efficiency are very good.

Thanks!

After posting yesterday, I started thinking that it wouldn't be too hard to test different lengths and/or widths of tube by cutting out the existing tube and replacing it with PVC.

You should post what you've done so far in the new DIY forum: http://www.thechocolatelife.com/group/diy

Here is the picture of my winnower that Clement is referring to:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=436345333073116&set=pb.124491320925187.-2207520000.1379333424.&type=3&theater

The Dust Deputy just collects the winnowed husk, though. It doesn't do any actual winnowing. Its intended use is as a dust collector, so it is designed to capture as much as possible in the bucket. It would need to be modified somehow to suck the lighter husks out of the vortex while letting the heavier nib drop.

A while ago (after seeing the Brookly Cacao winnower: http://brooklyncacao.com/machines/vortexWinnower.html ), I was thinking about trying this, but never got around to it.

Take a look at Ptomac chocolate. A nice picture is on the timeline.