I bought a bag of deshelled sunflower seeds and i’m wondering how they get the shell off?
They use a machine like this one.
It appears that they’re cleaned, hulled (probably they go through a pressure roller to crack the shells and then they’re vibrated/agitated) and then separated in two stages.
First they use suction to pick the shells out, which makes sense because they’re much lighter. Then a second separator sorts the seeds and the kernels. I’m guessing that one uses a big ol’ vibrating sieve. Then the seeds are cleaned again.
Whee.
Don’t miss the video, by the way. (I did.)
It’s Realvideo, which sucks, but it’s informative, explaining each step in detail. And it has Fur Elise (and some heavy breathing) on the sound track, instead of the godawful racket you might expect. Bonus!