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Australian
consumers are showing preference for hazelnut presented as kernel,
raw or dry roast, or as kernel products such as crumb, meal or flavoured
kernel.
Different hazelnut varieties produce nuts of different shapes and
sizes. We chose our varieties so that they would be easy to separate
by size grading. This means growers can harvest the entire grove
without picking up nuts from main crop and pollinizer varieties
in separate operations.
Harvested nuts have a moisture content of 12 – 15 % and require
drying. Once they are at 6 – 8 % moisture content, they will
keep well in shell for up to 18 months.
The nuts are delivered to us free of husk sticks and stones. If
they are not dry enough, we can dry them on racks on our sunny mezzanine
floor or in bins with air forced through.
Where a grower has used our varieties, we run the whole crop through
the size grade. This has holes in a rotating drum at 1 mm size graduations.
Each variety falls through a specific range of hole sizes –
ranging from Paskas Late through the smaller holes, then Turkish
Cosford, TBC and lastly Barcelona.
The bags are labeled with the variety and the grower and stored
for use.
Varieties are cracked separately to achieve even size and consistent
quality of kernel.
After cracking, the kernels move into our clean room where they
are inspected to remove bits of shell, poorly shaped or shriveled
kernel, and any with mould or unsightly colouration. We also remove
halves if the order is for whole kernel.
If the order is for raw, kernels are weighed, bagged and labeled.
Kernels for Premium Dry Roast are roasted slowly in a rotary roaster
over gas heat. With varieties that blanch the skin or pellicle falls
off and is sieved out before the nuts are set aside to cool.
They are bagged as
soon as they are cool enough to preserve maximum freshness and flavour.
Premium Dry Roast contains kernels from TBC.
We use halves and nuts from the pollinizers to make our kernel products:
Honey Soy Spiced Kernel,
Lightly Roasted Crumb, and our tasty Mudgee Hazelnut dukkah.
All our hazelnut products are free of artificial inputs.
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