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Teachers & Students
Let's go to the topic of "shelling out" the popcorn. Earlier, you saw popcorn traveling:
From the wagon -
Onto the elevator -
To the top of the drying bin -
The popcorn stays in the drying bin until it has dried to the proper moisture content (around 13 percent). The drying time can take months, and we have to monitor the drying and turn on the fans at the proper times so the popcorn does not spoil. We have a computer connected to the bin to help us monitor the process.
When it is ready to be processed, we shell the popcorn off the cobs. The shelled popcorn can be put into a different bin for storage or packaged right away.
Here you can see the end of a conveyer at the bottom of a bin. Christopher is pulling the corn down onto the conveyer belt. The corn dumps into the sheller auger. The end of the auger is just seen in the bottom right of this picture.
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In taking this picture, I'm standing where Dara is standing looking up the auger arm. You can see the sheller at the top of the auger. This process is very loud, like rattling, shaking, crunching noises all going on at once. We have to wear ear plugs!
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The shelled cobs (without the popcorn) go into a dump truck, (off to the right) and the shelled popcorn goes off to the left into a tumbler or a wagon. You can see the little white pipe jutting off to the left. This pipe augers the shelled popcorn into a receptacle at the end of the pipe which is just out of the picture. Below is the opposite view of the sheller. The stalks and cobs go into the back of the dump truck off the left side of the picture. The little white pipe goes to the tumbler which is not in the picture.
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What is a tumbler, you ask? A tumbler is a round, stainless steel container that turns around and around. The popcorn loses its "beeswings", little cellophane-like attachments by tumbling around and rubbing against their neighbors. Here's a picture of a tumbler in it's up position. It's ready to release the popcorn through another auger to be cleaned. But we'll save the cleaning story for another day.
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Here the drying bin has partially emptied, and Christopher is pushing some of the popcorn down onto the conveyer. Look at the picture at the top of this page to see the corn going from the conveyor onto the auger.
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Here's what it looks like empty! Dara is standing on the very floor of the bin, after the popcorn is emptied out and the conveyor has been removed.
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We have to put the floor back in to be ready for the next load of popcorn!.
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