Anyone have a recommendation on a good machine? We've had a bumper crop of pecans this year, don't want to crack one at a time but don't want to spend 5 K on a machine either. Anyone know of a good machine that's reasonably priced?

If theres a commercial operation near you, see if they will shell or crack them for you. Most will do it if they aren't too busy.

I've never seen anything that worked that was reasonably priced. There is a semi manual one called a Kinetic Kracker but it's pricey and not totally automatic. We owned a pecan operation growing up and the equipment we used for cracking and shelling, while available now, is tens of thousands of dollars. Since I'm not living at home running it now, I have searched for homeowner grade stuff but haven't seen anything. I imagine it's tough to sell reasonably cheap stuff that works well due to the endless variation in nuts any given person may need to process. We had our machines set up for about 5 hybrids for instance, but to process native pecans would have required changing dies, pockets, etc and tinkering with cleaners to accommodate them.

I'm definitely going to follow this thread because if anyone knows where to find such a thing, it would be TA/OB.

As it stands, my suggestion is to do as above….take it somewhere. If you pick enough pecans, a lot of places will buy them from you and you can broker a deal where you get a percent back in cleaned nuts.

Thank you,
I'll see if a commercial operation is near. Was hoping to get a shelter but not ready to spend over 6K at this time.