How to Separate Sunflower Kernels

Coffee Grinder Method

• 1

  Fill a coffee grinder with sunflower seeds.

• 2

  Pulse the grinder just until most of the hulls have cracked and broken. Do not run the grinder continuously or you will have sunflower-seed flour.

• 3

  Pour the cracked sunflower seeds into a bowl of water.

• 4

  Scoop off the hulls that rise to the top of the water with a skimmer.

• 5

  Pour the water off carefully to avoid dumping out the kernels at the bottom of the bowl.

Air Hose Method

• 6

  Fill a metal coffee can halfway with whole sunflower seeds and cover the can with the lid.

• 7

  Poke a small hole, just large enough for the nozzle of an air hose, in the bottom of the coffee can.

• 8

  Insert the tip of the air hose into the hole and blast the sunflower seeds with a gust of air. Hold the lid down tightly while the compressed air enters the coffee can to keep it from flying off. This mimics the procedure commercial producers use of bombarding the seeds with compressed air to separate the hulls from the kernels.

• 9

  Pour the seeds into a bowl of water and skim off the hulls that rise to the top of the water, leaving behind the kernels.