Could the timing be any better? For what you ask? Let me ask you a couple questions. 1) Where is the bottle neck in the chocolate making process currently?
2) How much do you love winnowing by hand?
3) How much do you want to spend $5000 on a winnower?
You have all heard how much and for how LONG I've been working on a winnower. Delay here, delay there. Costs rising. Issue here. Issue there. Well, all those delays, learning, time, effort and money have paid off. I had what can only be described as an epiphany a couple days ago based on everything I've learned over these years. I literally ran out to the hardware store, picked up very specific pieces of PVC, and as of this morning I have a fully working, compact, inexpensive winnow with cracker. It uses the champion juicer and a standard (albeit large) shop vac and does around 1 lb of nibs per minute. It works hands free, adjustment free and assembles in an hour or so.
I'm a big fan of transparency, so here's my plan. Once I fine tune the assembly I'll put the plans out. Free. There may end up being a couple 'fussy' connections, but I'm going to try to minimize them. Where I can't part two of the plan comes together. I'll find a way to have them made and offer them for sale. And finally, for those that just don't want to put one together and just want to buy it turn key, I will offer that also, plus (I hope) a non-pvc model in metal and/or plexiglass.
That's it for now.
Happy (Chocolate) Independence day.