The Shea Butter Experts » crushing shea nuts. shea butter extraction process http://www.sheabutterexperts.com Spotlight the women producers at the heart of the shea butter value chain Wed, 19 May 2010 05:28:53 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Shea Nuts to Shea Butter – Crushing and Roasting http://www.sheabutterexperts.com/2009/09/04/shea-nuts-to-shea-butter-crushing-and-roasting/ http://www.sheabutterexperts.com/2009/09/04/shea-nuts-to-shea-butter-crushing-and-roasting/#comments Sat, 05 Sep 2009 03:11:52 +0000 funlayo http://www.sheabutterexperts.com/?p=270 After the Shea kernels have been dried the next step is to crush the nuts using a mortar and pestle. One of the reasons I like the traditional method of processing shea butter is that the women are fully engaged in maintaining the quality of the product through every phase of production. I noticed that at every phase they continuously sorted  and picked out damaged nuts or debris that might have inadvertently been incorporated into the batch.

The roasting of the crushed nuts serves to soften the nuts and make the next steps of oil the extraction easier. I have seen the roasting of shea nuts done in two ways. The crushed nuts are roasted in an open pan, or they are placed into a roaster as shown below.  Both ways are fine as long as there is no burning.

Nuts Roasted Roasting Crushed Nuts

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