The Shea Butter Experts » low moisture content

Shea Nuts to Shea Butter – The Final Product

funlayo — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:35:27 +0000

The final product of the extraction process is a beautiful, smooth, ivory to light yellow shea butter with it’s characteristic nutty scent. The wisdom and skill of these African women to extract this rich nourishing butter from a brown shea nut never ceases to amaze me.

The process for quality shea butter begins with the harvesting. The end result will be shea butter with the following characteristics

Low FFA (Free Fatty Acids)
Low Moisture Content
Low impurities

Methods for drying shea nuts – Sun Drying

funlayo — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 19:57:14 +0000

Drying is a critical step in the production process. The nuts must be thoroughly dried in order to produce good quality shea butter. One of the characteristics of good shea butter is low moisture content. Proper sun drying ensures low moisture content and eliminates mold in the nuts and rancidity in the final products.

The challenge with sun drying is that it is time consuming. The drying period incidentally, coincides with the rainy season, so the women have to pay close attention to the weather.Â The women spread out the nuts on a mat in order to dry.

OpportunitiesÂ to improve the sun drying process include introducing a drying platformÂ thatÂ willÂ keep the nuts off the ground and allow air to circulate.

Other Methods of drying include Solar Panels andÂ TraditionalÂ Ovens.

Shea Nuts to Shea Butter – Boiling Shea Nuts

funlayo — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 22:32:12 +0000

After the nuts are harvested, they are steeped in boiling hot water for about 30 minutes.

The boiling of the nut serves 3 major functions

* It destroys microbes
* It halts the process of decomposition
* It prevents rancidity in the final products which is the shea butter

After the nuts are boiled, they are spread out to cool. The next step is to shell the nut and extract the sheaÂ kernel.

Shea Nuts to Shea Butter – Producing a Quality Product

funlayo — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 22:28:21 +0000

The key to quality shea butter is the process that begins from the moment the shea nut is harvested until the shea butter is extracted from the nut. If the process is compromised, the resulting shea butter will not meet the following standards:

The features of good quality Shea butter are

Low Free Fatty Acids (FFA)
Low Moisture Content
Low impurities
Beige to Yellow color
No rancid or smokey smells

Shea: From Tree to Nuts

funlayo — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 02:00:59 +0000