Winnowing is the process of removing the outer shell from the cocoa beans. We refurbished a Spanish-made antique winnowing machine, converting it to run with our factory’ssolar-power system. The machine first cracks the roasted cocoa beans into pieces of cocoa meat and shell. The pieces are sent cascading down a series of screens by means of vigorous vibration. As they fall through chutes under the screens, a vacum system sucks away all the shell and dust material and forces it into a collection bag. The pieces of cocoa bean meat or “nibs,” as they are called in the chocolate-world, fall through the chutes and into collection buckets and are ready for grinding.