Everyone that knows me, knows that there is a strong possibility that I am addicted to Almond Butter. Certainly there are worse things to be addicted to. In the island though this makes for a predicament.
Of course you could buy the store bought variety of Almond Butter. It would do the job, but you dont fully understand how much of a snob of almond butter I really am. ha ha.
After I found out about my addiction many years ago, the first thing that was attempted was using a Food Processor. By adding a bit of almond oil you could come up with a paste that looked very much like Almond Butter. The taste though was still off from the fresh ground which I was fully addicted to.
Years later after many searches on the internet, promises of real Ground almond butter searched out, the Gods shined down on me and gifted me with the right website!! It was like a light came down from heaven and said, “Hit the BUY button NOW”
With much anticipation the new blessing to my life arrived. It is an old school style “hand crank” grinder designed for the homesteader to make fresh flour, grits or the such. And in the package was the all too important metal grinding attachment. It was promised to make “fresh ground” almond butter.
Now for the majority of you that do not have this addiction, maybe you can understand the difference if we speak of Coffee. There are two types of Coffee Grinders. The “Blade Grinder” and the “Burr Grinder”. The first being the “Blade” grinder is no different than a food processor. Very sharp blades spin at high speeds chopping up the Bean. This does the job of making into a shape and form that appears correct and you think your getting a good cup of coffee.
The real coffee drinkers know that a “Burr” grinder actually grinds the coffee bean in a way that crushes the bean extracting the oils and flavor. And once you brew your cup, you can taste the difference.
Well almond butter is no different. The food processor chops and shears the nut apart. All of the oils stay within the pieces of Nut. The stone grinder actually crushes the Nut and extracted the essence of the oils which is what makes fresh ground so delicious of my “precious” almond butter.
Well those Homesteaders must of had all the time in the world. Because trust me, if I had to hand crank on that machine to make almond butter I would be here till next year.
And this is where I shine, ingenuity is the mother of all invention. For this little tid bit your going to have to watch the video.
And just so you know I am a bit crazy about my almonds, before departing Charleston 50 lbs of almonds were purchased and vacuum bagged. Hey its better than my friends who brought 20 cases of beer 🙂