Shelling beans in Largo, Fl.

This past week Scott blasted down to Largo, Fl. to meet with a fella called John Vessa who is a "confectionery engineer" (no idea if that's his job title - I just made it up) who is constructing our cocoa winnower. This guy has been in the business for ages and knows his stuff in a major way. What's a winnower? A winnower does a very simple job. It removes the shell from the cocoa bean and puts the shells in one stack and the cocoa bean in another. Strangely for such an uncomplicated job it's going to be the largest machine we have at a hulking 12' x 6' x 4'. It's a real humdinger. Anyway, Scott got a chance to see the machine in action and also get a feel for this monstrosity who will soon be headed northbound to our little shop. Anyway, here's Scott taming this great beast:

Apparently there are only three of these machines in existence. One is in Hawaii at Kona Chocolate and the other is owned by those Hershey guys.