I have been in Virginia working with a Community of Practice, which is developing materials for people interested in forest farming and producing specail forest products. Many of the people at this session -I have known for years. However - this time  - there as a snergy of enuthasim  that simply hasn't been present in other events.  I was asked to present a keynote - omg! These are Phd's and USDA's  folks of highly resprected position - how could I possible bring my message to the table in a way to create action, inspiration, passion - (first of all in myself, as it has to continually be renewed).  Yes, indeed - a very pivitol  Pinon pine nut presentation!

I brought one of our newest pine nut products to share, prior to dinner (shelled dehydrated pinyon pine nuts).  The setting was perfect, and people were starving.  Yes, timing is everything.....Time and again, "these are the best pine nuts I have ever eaten." "Can I buy these" My answer, "nope - you can only have them here and now, or join our mailing list for an upcoming free sample offer." 

 Bad taste, I called them pine nut crack - because they are - totally!!!  Rapt attention from the group - because they were invested in my pine nuts - completely invested.   I had no mercy with one gentleman (he loves to cook and he was eating out of my hand - very much so from a tiny paper cup. He was  sitting  rather high on the .gov  food chain, too)  I said, "you want more of these pine nuts? "  "Help me - I know you can!!"  To hell with a woman's wrath - simple charm them with amazing nuts!  There is no better way to connect people to the forest than feeding them wonderful food from it.

 YEAR OF  THE DRAGONFLY MEDICINE LINKS

Finding  medicine

The purpose of a blog - whatever you want it to be. For me, one purpose is my note  pad and a place I work  through ideas. Earlier today, it became very, very clear that I want to work at helping develop pinon production, private and public using the tools and experience we have spent the last 20+ years acquiring.

In Pine Nut production -- landowners, producers need to know how to estimate their crop.

 I posted the 100 lbs per acre post early on the blog. That post was filled with the excitement of an area dripping with cone. Many of those seeds were empty - bang! How does that factor into estimating yield in scoping? People need to learn these things, if they are going to produce pinyon nuts. 

 My highest yield was from a 7 acre, managed parcel, well trimmed, easily harvested - 110 lbs.  The property owner leased it for harvest and obtained a return of $220.00.  They report it produces  to that degree ever other  year and about every 5 years it has a bumper crop.  Their landcare plan is basically fire proofing taking the branches from 3.5 feet down, making very easy to place tarps beneath the trees.

 Simple, things people don't know to aske and I am going to start working on my outline to help with these objectives.  I will write some posts on estimating cone production   I have talked to harvesters,  seed collectors, foresters, extension agents and Native American people - there is a lot learned  - even among each other.  For example, George and I counted our bushells and calculated our yield, and it wasn't too bad, but not as good as we had hoped.  So, how do these things? How do learn to do them?  I think those are interesting thing to write about and good things to share, especially to get people insterested in producing American Pine Nuts

Basically,  George and I realized that the tools we have developed, including pinenut.com, wildcrops.com, Ameicanpinenuts.com-  could be used to create the solutions we sought.  We have built relationships with some landowners, and ranchers.  I see we can expand those relationships and these tools to include  tribes, groups - anyone/ everyone with an interst in  American pine nuts .

  The problem we faced with our sheller  was getting enough pine nuts to match with 1 ton contracts for free pine nut shellers.   The solution is to move the shellers and other tools lower on the supply chain and empower more people to harvest and process the pine nuts - get more product into the supply chain - more pickers, more people engaged.   It was laid out plainly in my blog post yesterday.  I was explaining to someone yesterday, that all pine cones are harvested by hand and that the labor costs in the United States were such that a traditional industrial, agricultural model was doomed to fail with pine nuts. In other countries it is forced labor, army or slave labor, or community forests, but there were few communities in Nevada.

 I can demonstrate the math backward and forward that industrial processing of pine nuts will not work with the traditional supply chain.  We don't have an American pine nut industry --not because we are a stupid people - no. There are many other reasons we do not have an American pine nut industry.   It is in the math of labor, couple with the reproductive cycle of pinyon pine and the price point of the product, together with the ratary design of  machines for industrial production based in other pine seed species.  Long and short, industrialization won't pay for the machines, can't be done big.  The hard shell pinon is a different story entirely - but that nut is entirely different.   Hardshell pinon have at least 200,000  people  ready to harvest when there is a crop on nation  lands  - I am not talking hard shell in New Mexico or Arizona on the reservations - tribes harvest that readily.  That nut is currently selling for about $40.00 lb inshell - so why process it?

  The problem is getting enough pine nut product from Colorado, Nevada, California or Idaho - maybe part of Oregon -  and the solution is getting people picking and we have the solution - make the tools available.  We have the tools from cone harvest to shelling to drying to selling, essential oil extraction, to charge card processing, order tracking, the entire 9 yard -we have it dialed in and want to work with others!! -   So this is our offier;

Any landowner or group with an interest in producing pinyon pine nuts should contact us and we can provide a turn key system for harvesting, processing, shelling, selling, offering pinyon pine by- products such as essential oils and cones selling these products from our  pinenut.com branding and related web sites.  Together with our expertice in harvesting, handling, procesing, low costing tooling we can help rural western landowers develop and environmentally enhancing, high end  speciality products with a marginal investment. 

PLAIN AND SIMPLE -

Landowners  who are interested in working with us are welcome to contact  us and share the work, tools and rewards.  We will help you manage your harvest, process your nuts, sell them, develop  the by products including cones and shells, obtain organic certification and produce a certified product if you wish, we will work our tools, our web sites and your land and trees to cooperatively create healthier lands and extremely valuable products - together, individually small- collectively using resources wisely.

THAT is the path forward - that is model - small cooperative, sharing resources, lean clean and green!

We started processing this year, simply for the fun of of doing something different with the last pallet of our nuts. As is the case around here, our never ending curiosity leads us in unexpected directions - like the pine nut vodka and tincture. Last night George completed the dehdyrator, which is an entire wall in our processing building. The processing building is generally used for distillation, but we don't distill in the winter. Albeit, we will be distilling some cone and some shells - to satisfy that never ending curisotiy. I certainly feel for people who are driven by money - as there is never enough to satisfy them.

We have our control package of raw nuts, which we are holding for formal shelf life testing. Now at 3 weeks the fresh product is holding strong- thanks to our training in organic handling and processing, we have a means to offer shelled raw pine nuts. The processing protocol is wash, crack, wash, dry, refrigerate, package in in beathable packing. and ship. This works great in the winter.

We had built a dryer to air dry the surface moisture off the fresh product and could see that if we dehyrated it, the balance of the shells would come off very easily. A couple years ago, we had received a energy agricultur grant for our farm and George took the heat exchanger, added flue pipe, sent the air through through dryer (now enclosed) added vents and temperature controls - we now have a full size dehydrator- for any farm product! This created a third product, dehyrated pine nuts dried at temperatures which satisfy the raw food market - a very high dollar food product - simply because of the food handling integrity.

Originally, George built a sheller as a valentine's gift simply to demonstrate the mechanics of rotary shelling, then an imact sheller to show it could be done. We had it manufactured to give away with pine nut contracts. The problem was getting enough nuts to do a pine nut contracts. There is simply not enough excess nuts out there and if there were a bumper harvest - getting pickers is next to impossible. We were never interested in providing shelled pine nuts ourselves - it is just not our thing. We like inovation - as opposed to income - ideas and possibilies move us - rather than fiscal incentives. Making enough to keep on keeping on with our passions, really is our financial goal - not getting rich.

In three years, we could never get enough nuts do do more than a couple of contracts - this year everyone had difficulty pickers - people were sold out very early on. In other countries - entire villages harvests, but Nevada has no villages. This is why the Nevada pine nut never gained a huge following, there were comparatively few nuts in the market place due to the realitive few number of people picking. In North Korea the army harvests. Traditionally the Hopi, Zuni and Navajo would pick but those nations will NOT pick in Nevada. In Colorado, it was suggested we use prison labor - I am glad we did not- as we already know - it is a waste of time not to mention distasteful and wrong. You cannot force people to do a good job of harvesting and the harvest window is short - finally - you need to know what you doing out there in woods - or you will end up with bags of empy cone.

All the didilling we have been doing shows us that the answer to best use of Nevada's pinyon forest lies with small groups of people collectively gathering and processing pine nuts, rather than any large indusrial, outdated commercial model. The low cost processing George developed ($1,000.00 cone tumble, shaker table, seed elbow, $1,000 sheller), it possible to obtain greater utilization of the American pine nut resource through low cost value added processing - greater return to a larger number of people - thus, motivating more people to collect and process. In fact, given the the portable, affordable nature of this system, we could easily lease a half of dozen shellers to various tribes or ranches, or individuals. It is simple to put this entire system together and empower people in using the natural food resource of  Nevada's pinyon forest.

We have demonstrated that for $2,500.00 people can establish an organic certifiable processing system for the American Pine Nut and this is the message I am going to carry to the USDA, cooperative extension and the various Universities Monday in Virigina: small, low cost value added, high dollar products is the way of toward a sustainable future for our forests with special forest products.

The feedback I am getting on the pinon vodka from the food community tells me we are scoring big time in trending. WAY TO GO - Mother of Invention. Scroll down to see instructions and other posts on making your own pine nut vodka, and vokda pine nut tincture. Many, Many thanks to my Russian Friends who turned me on to this traditional use of pine nut and their shells.

 BTW - I love the taste of the pine on my pallet and like everything else, we try it before we promote it around here.

In the near future, we will be offering naturally dehydrated American Pinyon Pine Nuts on www.pinenut.com</a>.  Our supply of raw materials has historically been so sparse that we had not offered the product previously. It had not been worth the time and trouble to set up a processing system, but this year - we simply felt like doing something different with the close out inventory.  It has been a great choice. 

 The most amazing part of the process has been realizing how efficent George's little sheller is.  With a single feed, we can process almost 20 lbs per hour . We see that processing a 1000 lbs per day, with a couple of machines, each with two feeds rather than one is possible, without any major outlay of start-up capitol.  This is perfect for the erratic nature of Nevada's soft shell pine nuts.  While there are huge areas of pine nut production in Nevada, the major barrier to producing a shelled pine nut product in the United States is a both labor and access to the productive areas of the forests (mature, healthy trees).  

 I once tried to explain to people that selling pine nuts was a "no -brainer" and the challange is getting the nuts off the trees, in such a remote area  during the short window of the harvest season.  If you have ever been out in pine nut land in Nevada, you realilze that you might need to drive 3 hours to get to a gas station, or a post office, or a to a town with a population of 2,000.  There is simply not a labor force in the region nor are there support services.  Nevada pine nut harvesting is all about being in wild lands, camp fires, hauling lots and lots of water, food and supplies.  (This is an area where super smart George comes in with his handy dandy portable dome builings and we used those in our harvesting).

Nevada Pinyon Pine Nuts come in a great size range, and this make  current industrial shelling equiptment, clumsy and inefficent as there simply is not enough of a harvest to make any single size shelling on a commercial scale feasible.  Large commercial pine nut shellers sold in other parts of the world process 1,000 lbs per hour of uniform sized pine nuts. Pine nuts are sorted at the very least into 6 sizes, more often 12, and different sizes require differnet parts. In order to run commercial equiptment for a week, one would need 35,000 lb of raw material gleaned as 1/6th of the total harvest or a total harvest of at least 210,000 pounds per week of opperation . From this 35,000 lbs one might produce 12,000 lbs of kernels. It is not possible to recover the investment of the machine costs at the limted rate of production in Nevada. Plus, the nut is so vaulable in the shell - given its beautiful, easy to crack soft shell - that shelling has not been a cost effective way to manage the raw material.  It certainly has been impractical to set up any type of large commercial opperation, that requires a large capitol investment in equitment.  The math will never pan out on big, centralized production in the United States pine nut market - overhead is not worth the unpredictable, sporatic yield. We simply cannot support industrial processing of shelled pine nut kernels

We found a way around those issues by thinking small, affordable, verstitle and low impact, techonolgy.  I am very, very proud of George (he is truly the brains here).  We run the nuts through the cracker and a high pecentage of the kernels come out clean and shelled.  Most the shell can be removed with a simple air flow process and the kernels then dry easily out of their shells.   A second run through the cleaner and we have one beautiful pine nut product!!  We have not put these on our site, yet as we are busy and the product is shelf stable - once dehydrated. 

Now we have three products, in three stages, for three times of the year - fresh, inshell raw, cracked raw, dehydrated shelled. We could offer fresh raw,or dehydrated cracked pine nus. The processing methods we have create a shelf stable raw pine nut for 3 weeks or more and the dehydrated nuts are shelf stable for years.  The technology is scaleable and portable and energy efficent - small, lean and clean - that is how.

Link: http://www.springerlink.com/content/x755w23l23n460h5/

4 oz Bag of Pinon Pine Shells Seasoning $4.25 -  buy now on ebay or coming soon to www. pinenut.com  exclusively

Pine Nut Shell's Chemistry and Essential Oils:

 The essential oil was extracted by steam distillation method and analyzed by gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry. Forty-eight volatile chemical compositions were determined and identified. á-Pinene, â-pinene, 3-carene, 1-methy-4-(1-methylethenyl)-(S)-cyclohexene, and n-hexadecanoic acid are predominant volatile compositions in pine nut shells.   While we did not do the distillation in this study, we are preparing to distill pinon pine cone and are excited about offering essential oil of pinyon pine cone in the near future.

HOW TO MAKE A PINE SHELL TINCTURE

Fill a 1/2 pine jar 3/4 full of pinon nut shells.  Cover shells with vodka or other alcohol, store in dark place for 3 months. Strain and bottle.  The Russians have used a powder made from the shells of pine nuts for many, many purposes. 

POWER IN PINON (hint - it not biomass fuel stock) -

Seasoning and Flavorings from Pinon Penny Pine Nut Shells !

Pine nut shells are the source of the unique organic substances and mineral complex, which is impossible to synthesize by humans.  However, those substances can be extracted using simple processes like a tincturing. 

Pine nut shells are said to be antiviral and the powder contains  essential amino acids and

accelerators for metabolism.  Some basic compounds in pine nuts shells include: cellulose,  lignins, hemicelluloses ,pentosans , fats and pitches, proteins There is a small quantity of the essential oils. The shells have the original amino-acid, macro and micro-element structures, different from a kernels composition.

Tanins can enter into the surface interaction with very great number of materials. They can

be adsorbed by many substances (coal, graphite, cellulose etc.) and they can adsorb on their surface true dissolved substances, in particular sugar, phenols, anions of the mono basic fatty acids (acetic acid and its homologues), sulfonic acids and others. Tannins are capable of changing the colloidal state of proteins and creating astringent, antimicrobial and antinflammatory action.

Tannins help to constrict skin and form a protective film on mucous

membranes and wound surfaces, under which a new layer of young cells is regenerated.

RUSSIAN APPLICATION IN MEDICINE

Extracts from the powder   of  pine nut shells are used as a cure for liver diseases and stomach diseases, acute rheumatism, radiculitis. They are effective for blood diseasestreatment, hemorrhoids, gynecologic disorders, salt metabolism disorders.

Extracts from the powder  of   pine nut shells are taken for salts resolution (cure of arthritis and osteochondrosis ). The Powder is traditional used and believed to cures cold, muscular ache, rheumatism, gout, pains in joints. Extracts or tincture lotions from the ground shells is used for herpes treatment. Extracts from the powder   of   pine nut shells are known as a good antitussive medicine.

Baths with extracts from the powder of   pine nut shells are recommended for rheumatism, arthritis, gout and lumbago. Tincture from the POWDER raises vitality, gives strengths and recovers normal functioning of the gastrointestinal tract organs.

Most of this information is simply a repost of traditional Russian applications for pine nut shells - my own experience has shown the gastrointestinal actions.  My suggestion is to use the tincture by the drop, not by the shot glass.  Our tincture application are for greater amounts of shell over longer periods of time. 

Russian Tincture method -l

Tincture from the Powder of pine nut shells (recipe of Siberian folk medicine)

Prepare 2 or 3 tablespoons of the powder of  pine nut shells and put it into 0,5 litres of

spirit (40%). Let it draw for 10 days in a dark warm place, stir. Leave for 2-3 days more. Filter it and the tincture is ready for use. Take 1 tablespoon of tincture 3 times a day before meal, the course duration is 30 - 60 days.

Stop taking the   tincture for 1 month and continue from 2 to 5 courses in a year. This spirits tincture has an antineoplastic action; it clears blood and lymphatic systems. It is useful for therapy of cardiovascular diseases and low immunity health states, eye illnesses, pathology of urino-genital system, including mastopathy and myoma.

We are not advocating that people treat disease with the process, simply sharing traditional folk medicine practices from Russia.  Some research exists to support these claims, however, it primarily scientific publications outside the United States

Link: http://www.americanpinenuts.com

We have gotten priceless feedback from clients and lots of excellent questions from the raw food community. I am all for pulling aside the curtain and providing complete transparency in the processing methods  of  our pine nuts.  Our background is in certified organic production, processing and handling -  naturally, this is how we do everything on our farm.

Short Summary of Pine Nut Processing

First it is important to understand different species of pine seeds require different processing methods as the size and shape of the seeds differ widely. Pine nuts come from various species of pine trees. The methods by which the cones are harvested are uniform. Pick cones and dry them. In many countries the cones are dried in the sun. In some countries, the cones go into a dryer and are heated to allow the nuts to escape.

There are several manufactures of machines that will shell pine nuts. Shelling can happen one of two ways. One way is rotary - friction strips the shells off.The Universal Nut sheller design is an example of a rotary sheller- there are plenty of how to videos on this, if you want to make your own. It is very inexpensive to build and operate. The disadvantage of this method is that the nuts need to be sized. Each size of nut requires the adjustment of the rotary device as it is the space between two hard surfaces that roll against the nut and remove the shell. If the distance is too great, the nut won't shell, too small and the nut is crushed.

The rotary method of shelling requires that the nut meat be hard and most of the time the nuts have been pre-roasted or dehydrated. If the nut meat is too soft, the rotary will squash it. Thus, most pine nuts are dried or dehydrated before they are shelled. This is one reason it is difficult to get real raw pine nuts. Drying temperatures vary with processor and country. The processor is trying to move pine nuts through the process and as in all industrial processes - time / money concerns often take a back seat to quality. In small farm direct production, especially when you have transparancy and fact to face contact, quality takes a leap forward.  (I have a post on how to buy fresh nuts farm direct).  The bottom line on nut processing - small, direct allows more people to retain greater value for their labor and there lands.

The other method is impact shelling, where the pine nut is bounced against a hard surface to crack. This is ideal for the Nevada soft shell pine nut. The nuts come in lots of sizes and with this method of shelling the nuts do not need to be sized. Impact shelling requires the speed of the nut be sufficient to crack it against a hard surface. We found it pretty easy to adjust pressure to shell American pine nuts, both the hard and the soft shell - provided the hard shell has enough moisture. Using this method allows us to shell raw pine nuts. However, raw pine nuts are notoriously frail and generally, have a very limited shelf life. We found an organic approved treatment that stabilizes the pine nut meat without the need of drying or roasting prior to shelling.

As rawfood clients have been asking us for a raw pine nut for years, we designed our processing to allow for various products at various stages of processing - cool!! Last year, I had raw pine nuts in the fridge for close to a month, albeit I advice 3 weeks at the most and generally recommend that the precracked nuts be frozen, roasted or dehydrated as soon as practical.

Right now, we have a cracking service and for $2.50 lb clients can get their pine nuts cracked and cleaned. We wash the nuts twice, before and after shelling, shell in small batches - then dry overnight at a fairly low temperature to remove surface moisture, then package and ship the next day. Any product not sold, continues dehydration and most of the remaining shells can be blown off the next day as shrinking the nut meatscreates enough room for the nut shell to catch air and blow away. Nifty - neat! Different sizes of Nevada pine nuts have different textures - e.g. the smallest nuts are the most fragile in texture, while larger nuts are rather hearty. So, in drying / dehydrating sizing is somewhat important.

I have been advising our clients on dehydration of the raw product. Raw fooders are very, very picky eaters. They don't want their nut enzymes to be destroyed by heat. George built a dehydrator, dryer in our processing building the other day. Heat goes in the bottom and is pulled through the nuts, then pulled out of the box with fans. Very simple! Very, very simple. He designed the dehydrator to work at low temps with max air flow to make the raw fooders happy! However, if raw fooders want to dehydrate in their homes, I am sure they will have no problem finding a screen and a fan.

Link: http://www.pinenut.com

I am one happy camper! George's pine nut cracker sheller has performed well past expectations. We had estimated production at 10 lbs per hour however, we have had only a marginal interest in producing a shelled product. Truth be told, we would rather other people set up local shelling and purchase their inshell pine nuts from us. That was the purpose in designing the sheller, that and we are prone to like a good challange - thiving on vision followed by inovation in all aspects of our work.

This is the story of our freshly shelled American Pine Nuts.

We hadn't much left in our inventory and felt like doing something different to close out our year. We set up our sheller and one my best friends found herself single and needing any type of income. She is an excellent homemaker,grows and cans her food, and runs a spotless tight ship in her kitchen. She and I agreeded to a price per pound for shelling and my goodness - this woman can crack nuts. She is my hero - imagine at 55 if you were suddenly single, losing your home, and had been a homemaker ALL of your life and that world had shattered - cracking nuts can certainly be a healing metaphor. I am so proud of her and she has come out of her shell while shelling pine nuts for you - our clients! I am going to put her picture her is she will let me. So, my friend can shell 15 - 20 lbs per hour with only 1 feed and we can add up to three feeds on the machine.

 WOW-WOW-WOW!!! We clean the nuts first, then crack, then run them through a seed elbow (easy design George came up with in colorado)then rinse with activated water (100 % organic approved handling) and air dry. The next day we pack up the pine nuts in special green bags and ship them. This can only be done in winter when the air temperatures are cool through out the United States - so it a perfect way to close out any remaining inventory.

My girlfriend, nut-cracker extraordinare, took one look at the final product and said,"those are beautiful!" I am so proud to send such a fresh, pure, clean chemical free product out to our clients. I am so proud to watch my friend whose world fell apart renew her spirit with shelling these pine nuts. If there is any shelled product left over from a day of cracking it can be dehyrdated and we will launch pine nut seasoning during the pesto season.

The biggest challange of the entire orprocess was processing space as our procesing building is also used for our distillations. If we were to incorporate this into a regular part of our offerings, we would need to triple our processing space. Bless handy, dandy George - he was able to revamp processing to accomodate our need for shelled product and has a plan for dehyrdation should we need that function as well. Dehyrdrated pine nuts can ship in the summer. The biggest success is that very,very simple, low cost processing of American Pine Nuts can make it possible to raise the esteam of the pinyon tree in the realm of agriculture. As of today, it will take about a week to catch up on the 10 lb orders with free cracking. So, I sort of doubt there will be any leftover nuts - but if so, we will put them out on our site in July when EVERYONE wants pesto.

For the 2012 harvest of pine nuts we will gladly continue the offer of a free sheller with the purchase of a ton of pine nuts,  Our desire is to create conservation and management ethics for the pinyon forests through promoting sustainable, ethical enterprise and we know, now first hand that George Fazier's tiny little pine nut sheller can kick booty.

Hello,

We are offering free cracking / shelling on 10 lb orders of Nevada Jumbo Pine Nuts - January 11 -14. Subscribers may pre-order here, simply note in comments section - PLEASE ADD FREE CRACKING. http:/www.pinenut.com/blog has product pictures and more information. BE CERTAIN TO NOTE FREE SHELLING IN THE COMMENT or FREE CRACKING when placing your order

http://www.pinenut.com/pine-nuts-sale/buy-pinon-pinenuts-shell.shtml

This free service is offered ONLY for 3days for 10 lb orders - NO WHOLESALE - very limited supply of FRESH RAW AMERICAN PINE NUTS. US ORDERS ONLY.

Thank you