Corn shelling

marcusmerritt · Oct 17, 2020

I was gonna post a follow up to an earlier post about corn shellers but couldn't find it. My story was that I used to get shipped to my relatives in the summer for a few weeks and one of the jobs at my Uncle Ben's farm was to shell corn for the chickens and pigs with his hand cranked sheller. Like the one in the attached photo (I hope it attaches). Today, my wife and I drove up to Dawsonville to buy some ear corn from a guy and, when we got back, I shelled a few ears to see how it works. Am happy to report that it worked very well, just like remembered. Got my wife to do a quick video of me in action and will try to include it in this post:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bo9ubw3jqv28luu/2020-10-17%2017.41.57.mov?dl=0

Shelled corn will go to my brother for use at his deer camp. He's down there already and won't be back for a week.

Brown Dirt Cowboy · Oct 17, 2020

they work good for getting the hull off of walnuts also.

DaleinWV · Oct 18, 2020

second the comment as a black walnut sheller, too. removed the handle, made an adapter for a pulley and used a small electric motor. it chucked everything out - black walnuts and
green shell pieces. Sorting, drying, cracking and picking to follow.

rrlund · Oct 18, 2020

Dad had one like that mounted on a wooden milk bottle box. He always used it to shell seed corn for silage.

Goose · Oct 18, 2020

Why would your brother want shelled corn in a deer camp? Just curious.

marcusmerritt · Oct 18, 2020

I figured my brother's deer camp has feeders that automatically spray out shelled corn onto the ground for the deer to feed on. I called him yesterday but his wife said he was 'in the woods', meaning at his deer camp, and wouldn't be back until this coming week. Will have to check with him then.

I will say that the sheller works remarkably well for such a simple device. Almost all ears are ejected with no kernels remaining on them. The only drawback, and I must have forgotten this from my youth, is that the sheller wears your arm out! Just finished a 25 pound bag of ear corn and have another 60 pound bag to go. Gotta entice my wife to take a turn on the sheller.

marcusmerritt · Oct 18, 2020

I finished shelling a 25lb bag of yellow corn that I bought from a local feed and seed store. It was commercially bagged and I don't have any idea when the corn was harvested. I'm working on a 60 pound bag of white corn that I bought from a farmer Saturday. The yellow corn came off the cob easily. The white corn is not quite so easy to shell. It shells fine but takes a bit more effort to crank the sheller. Both yellow and white corn is dry but the white corn is from this years crop whereas I don't know when the yellow corn might have been harvested. Would this difference in ease of shelling be caused by a difference in moisture content?

Thanks for any input.

BarnyardEngineering · Oct 19, 2020

Dry corn shells much easier than wet corn.

We hand shelled several ears last week to test moisture for high moisture corn. One field was 25% the other was 29%. It took some hand strength to pop the kernels loose.

I had a couple ears from last year's crop laying around so out of curiosity I tried to shell them, and the kernels practically fell of the ears. This corn was in my office and tested 8%. Very dry.

marcusmerritt · Oct 19, 2020

I figured the moisture content must have something to do with the ease of shelling. If I laid out the remaining white corn in the bed of my pickup truck, would it dry quickly or is it more a time of weeks before it would be dried out?

Corn shelling

marcusmerritt

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Brown Dirt Cowboy

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DaleinWV

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rrlund

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Goose

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marcusmerritt

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BarnyardEngineering

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