Macadamia Processing Line Layout: Harvest to Packed Kernel

A macadamia processing line runs five stages in a fixed order: dehusking, drying, cracking, kernel grading, and packing. The machines are the straightforward part. The decision that costs money is how the stages are sized against each other, because every stage is rated on a different material — a dehusker on fresh fruit with the husk still on, a cracker on dry nut-in-shell. This guide covers the stage order, the sizing arithmetic, three layouts that work in real buildings, and the space and power a line actually needs.

Last updated: 17 September 2026

The short answer

Five stages, one fixed order: dehusk → dry → crack → grade → pack. The sequence cannot be rearranged, only resized.
Stage capacities are rated on different materials and cannot be compared directly. Do the mass arithmetic before you buy, not after.
Size the line by the slowest stage. Then decide whether to add a second unit or accept a longer season — that is a commercial choice, not an engineering one.
Split the building into a wet room and a dry room. Dehusking is wet work; cracking needs dry, consistent nuts. Humidity crossing that boundary is the most common avoidable loss.
Build in phases: dehusk and dry first. Those two stages protect the crop, and they are the ones that lose money fastest when the harvest is running late.
Opened macadamia is a separate product line (NS-X321 / NS-X322), not a stage of the kernel line.

The five stages, in order

Each stage changes the material, and the change is what makes the next stage possible. Confusing them is how lines end up with one machine permanently idle and another permanently behind.

#	Stage	What changes	Machine	Capacity is rated on
1	Dehusking	Green husk removed; the nut stays in its shell	Green husk peeler, NS-X121 to NS-X124	Fresh nuts with husk still on
2	Drying	Moisture falls to the level the cracker needs	Dryer — not supplied by us	Wet nut-in-shell
3	Cracking	Shell broken; kernel separated from shell in one pass	Shell cracker / kernel extractor, NS-X221 and NS-X222	Dry nut-in-shell
4	Grading	Kernel separated into size and quality classes	Screens, or hand sorting at small volumes	Kernel
5	Packing	Product into bulk or retail packaging	Bagging and sealing equipment	Kernel

One structural point that shapes every layout: drying breaks the shift. Dehusking and cracking are same-day operations, but drying runs for days. A line is therefore not one continuous flow from the orchard to the box — it is two operations connected by a buffer of drying nuts. Design the building around that buffer and the line becomes far easier to run.

Why the stage ratings cannot be added up

This is the single most expensive misunderstanding in macadamia processing. A supplier quotes a dehusker at 1,000 kg/h and a cracker at 600 kg/h, and the buyer concludes the cracker is undersized. It usually is not — the two figures are measured on completely different material, because husk and water both come out of the mass in between.

An illustrative calculation. Suppose 1,000 kg of freshly harvested macadamia arrives at the line. If husk removal takes out 35% of the mass, and drying takes out a further 20% of what remains, then 1,000 kg becomes about 650 kg of wet nut-in-shell, and about 520 kg of dry nut-in-shell going to the cracker. Substitute your own measured husk-out and drying loss — the arithmetic is the point, not these particular percentages.

Run that sum with real numbers and a 1,000 kg/h dehusker (NS-X124) feeding a 600 kg/h cracker is not the mismatch it first appears: 1,000 kg/h of fresh fruit becomes roughly 520 kg/h of dry nut-in-shell, comfortably inside the cracker’s rating. The same sum in reverse explains why buying a bigger cracker rarely fixes a slow line — if the dehusker is the constraint, a larger cracker simply waits.

Three layouts, and when each one works

Layout	Best for	What it costs you
Single-room straight line. One room, machines in sequence from the intake end to the packing end.	Lines up to roughly 500 kg/h of dehusking, and buildings that only have one usable bay.	Husk dust and humidity reach the cracking area. You will fight moisture variation all season.
L-shape or U-shape. The sequence turns a corner, usually around a column or a doorway.	Narrow buildings where a straight run will not fit, and sites where the intake and dispatch doors must be far apart.	Access space at the corner is tight; plan a turning area for bins or pallets before you fix machine positions.
Two-room split (recommended). Dehusking and washing in a wet room; drying, cracking, grading and packing in a dry room.	Any line that intends to run more than a few weeks a season.	Costs one extra doorway and a wall. It is the cheapest upgrade on this list.

Space, power and services

Footprints below are the machines’ actual dimensions. Add working space around each one — a minimum of about one metre on the service side is a practical floor, and more where you need to move a bin or pallet through.

Model	Machine	Capacity	Power	Dimensions (L × W × H)	Weight
NS-X121	Green husk peeler, small	~150 kg/h	2.2 kW, 220 V or 380 V	1,050 × 400 × 750 mm	~126 kg
NS-X123	Green husk peeler, medium	300 kg/h	3 kW, 220 V or 380 V	1,050 × 400 × 1,400 mm	~160 kg
NS-X122	Green husk peeler, large	~500 kg/h	4 kW, three-phase	820 × 580 × 1,000 mm	~130 kg
NS-X124	Green husk peeler, industrial	1,000 kg/h	3 kW, three-phase	2,350 × 630 × 1,130 mm	~280 kg
NS-X221	Shell cracker / kernel extractor	~600 kg/h	3 kW + 1 kW, 220 V	1,350 × 1,000 × 1,300 mm	~250 kg
NS-X222	Stainless shelling line	~200 kg/h	Three-phase	1,150 × 990 × 1,370 mm	~390 kg
NS-X321	Opening machine, compact	~50 kg/h	Single-phase electric	1,200 × 700 × 1,100 mm	~250 kg
NS-X322	Opening machine, industrial	~150 kg/h	6 kW, three-phase	1,850 × 1,200 × 1,180 mm	~470 kg

Beyond the machines, five services decide whether a layout works in practice:

Power. Check three-phase availability before choosing models. The industrial peeler, the stainless shelling line and the NS-X322 opening machine need it; the small and medium peelers can run on 220 V.
Floor. The heaviest single unit is around 470 kg before any product is in it. A level, hard floor is simpler than reinforcing one later.
Husk extraction. Green husk is bulky and wet. Decide where it goes on day one — a trailer, a compost heap, a cattle feed buyer — because it leaves the building at the same rate the nuts come in.
Drainage in the wet room. Dehusking produces water and wet husk. A slope to a drain costs very little at build time.
Airflow in the dry room. Drying nuts release a lot of moisture. Cross-ventilation or extraction keeps the cracking area consistent.

Five layout mistakes that show up a season later

Sizing the cracker to the dehusker’s nameplate. Do the mass arithmetic in both directions, with your own husk-out and drying loss.
No surge capacity between stages. A bin or hopper between drying and cracking lets you run each stage at its own rhythm. Without one, the slowest machine sets the pace for everything.
No room to move a bin between stages. If nuts have to be carried by hand, the layout has already failed — and lifting is where a lot of kernel damage happens.
Wet and dry work in the same room. Humidity from dehusking makes cracking settings unpredictable, which shows up as inconsistent whole kernel rate rather than as an obvious fault.
Buying for the peak week. Size for the season average and manage the peak with a second shift or a hired unit. A machine sized for three weeks a year is idle for thirty.

How to phase the build

Most processors should not buy the whole line at once. The risk is not the money — it is buying the wrong capacity at stage three because stages one and two are not yet running.

Phase 1 — protect the crop. Dehusking and drying. Until the husk is off and the moisture is down, every day of delay reduces what the cracker can recover. This phase pays for itself in the first season.
Phase 2 — turn nuts into kernel. Cracking and grading. Add the cracker once you know your real throughput in dry nut-in-shell, which is the number Phase 1 finally gives you.
Phase 3 — reach the market. Packing, plus an opening machine (NS-X321 or NS-X322) if you intend to sell opened macadamia rather than kernel.

Frequently asked questions

How many machines does a macadamia processing line need?

A working kernel line needs at least three machine stages — a green husk peeler, a cracker, and grading equipment — plus drying, which may be a purpose-built dryer or a well-designed drying floor. Packing can start as manual bagging. If you also sell opened macadamia, that is a separate machine and normally a separate product line.

What is the smallest practical macadamia processing line?

The entry point is the NS-X121 peeler at around 150 kg/h, paired with the NS-X221 shell cracker at around 600 kg/h. This pairing is deliberately generous at the cracking stage: at small volumes the cracker is rarely the constraint, and the NS-X221 also cracks apricot kernels, cherry kernels, peach kernels, jujube kernels and hazelnut, which spreads its cost across more than one season.

Can one cracking machine handle other nuts as well as macadamia?

Yes. The NS-X221 is a general-purpose hard-shell cracker rather than a single-crop machine, and it is used on macadamia, apricot kernels, cherry kernels, peach kernels, jujube kernels and hazelnut. That matters for smaller operations, where one machine that serves several crops is easier to justify than a dedicated unit that sits idle for months.

What is the difference between a shelling machine and an opening machine?

A shelling machine cracks the shell and separates kernel from shell in one pass — it produces kernel, and it runs at hundreds of kilograms per hour. An opening machine cuts a controlled slot into the shell instead of crushing it, so the kernel stays intact inside the shell; that is the standard product for retail and confectionery sale of opened macadamia. Opening runs much slower — around 50 kg/h for the NS-X321 and around 150 kg/h for the NS-X322 — because the machine is doing precise work rather than bulk separation.

Do I need three-phase power for a macadamia processing line?

For a line above roughly 200 kg/h, plan on three-phase. The industrial peeler (NS-X124), the stainless shelling line (NS-X222) and the industrial opening machine (NS-X322) all use three-phase motors. The small and medium peelers (NS-X121, NS-X123) and the shell cracker (NS-X221) can be configured for a 220 V supply, so a small line can genuinely start on single-phase power.

How much space does a 500 kg/h line need?

The machines themselves are compact — the 500 kg/h peeler (NS-X122) measures about 820 × 580 × 1,000 mm. Space disappears in the handling, not the machines: allowance for bins between dehusking and drying, a working aisle of at least a metre on the service side, and somewhere to put the husk. As a rule of thumb, plan the machinery footprint and then roughly double it for movement, product and access.

Thinking through a line for your crop?

Tell us three things and we will come back with a layout suggestion, the models that fit it, packing volume and lead time — usually within one business day.

The nut or fruit you process, and whether husk or cherry is still on at intake
Your realistic average daily volume, and whether you run one shift or two
Your power supply: 220 V single phase, or 380 V three phase

Email nanshengtechnology@gmail.com or WhatsApp +86 133 7302 3075. We confirm every specification in writing before production. Dongguan Nansheng Technology Co., Ltd., Dongguan, Guangdong, China.