Shea nut contains special quality oil called shea butter. Shea nut at first is subjected to mechanical extraction with the help of screw presses. The resultant cake containing 14 to 16% oil (butter) is subjected to solvent extraction.
What is a shea nut kernel?
The kernel is the oil-bearing material that can be obtained by processing the shea nut fruit. The fruit primarily undergoes several processes – de-pulping, boiling, drying, deshelling, winnowing and sorting – to obtain the kernel from which the shea butter is extracted. Mechanical processing technology
How are shea nuts processed?
Subsequently, the nuts are processed by boiling, roasting, or sun-drying. Boiling in water prevents the shea seeds from germinating and prevents hydrolytic degradation of the extracted shea butter. The boiled shea nuts are sun-dried, and then the dried shea nuts are cracked to obtain the kernels.
How to refine shea butter?
Crude shea butter obtained from the extraction process undergoes many refining steps. The process of how to refine shea butter begins with pretreatment and bleaching, which is followed by deodorisation and deacidification to obtain refined shea butter.
How is shea butter extracted?
About 30–33% of shea butter is extracted from the shea nuts with the mechanical expeller although combination of the mechanical with chemical methods has achieved 98% extraction efficiencies. The chemical extraction processes
Why do Shea nuts need to be boiled?
Boiling in water prevents the shea seeds from germinating and prevents hydrolytic degradation of the extracted shea butter. The boiled shea nuts are sun-dried, and then the dried shea nuts are cracked to obtain the kernels. The kernels, too, are either sun-dried or roasted to eliminate any residual moisture.