PART OF A CACAO BEAN WAREHOUSE, SHOWING ENDLESS BAND CONVEYOR.
(Messrs. Cadbury Bros'. Works, Bournville).
(b) Sorting the Beans.
As all cacao is liable to contain a little free shell, dried pulp (often taken for twigs), threads of sacking and other foreign matter, it is very carefully sieved and sorted before passing on to the roasting shop. In this process curios are occasionally separated, such as palm kernels, cowrie shells, shea butter nuts, good luck seeds and "crab's eyes." The essential part of one type of machine (see illustration) which accomplishes this sorting is an inclined revolving cylinder of wire gauze along which the beans pass. The cylinder forms a continuous set of sieves of different sized mesh, one sieve allowing only sand to pass, another only very small beans or fragments of beans, and finally one holding back anything larger than single beans (e.g., "cobs," that is, a collection of two or more beans stuck together).
CACAO BEAN SORTING AND CLEANING MACHINE.
Reproduced by permission of Messrs. J. Baker & Sons, Ltd., Willesden.
Another type of cleaning machine is illustrated by the [diagram] on the opposite page.
This machine with its shaking sieves and blast of air makes a great clatter and fuss. It produces, however, what the manufacturers desire—a clean bean sorted to size.
