Fresh -Cracked- Pecans For Sale

Cracked means the pecans are still in their shells, but we have run them through a mechanical cracker that breaks the shell open without crushing the meat inside. You still need to pick the pecan halves and pieces out by hand, but the hard work of cracking is done. Most folks find that an evening at the kitchen table with a bowl, the cracked pecans (and maybe a picking tool) yield plenty of nut meat for pies, snacking, or freezing. It is a nice middle ground between buying whole in-shell pecans and paying for fully shelled halves.

A good rule of thumb is that our cracked pecans yield about fifty percent meat and fifty percent shell by weight. So a five-pound bag of cracked pecans should give you roughly two and a half pounds of pecan halves and pieces once you have picked them out. The exact yield can vary slightly based on the harvest, but our pecan varieties have been bred over generations to deliver a high meat-to-shell ratio, which is one of the things our great-great-grandfather worked on when he started experimenting in San Saba back in the 1800s. Hint: Feel free to spread the shells in your garden to return nutrients to the soil.

It comes down to how much time you want to spend versus how much you want to save. Shelled pecan halves are ready to use the moment you open the bag and are perfect when you are short on time or baking large quantities for the holidays. Cracked pecans take some hands-on work to pick the meat from the shell, but the pecans tend to be a little less expensive per pound of finished nut, and a lot of folks enjoy the ritual of sitting and picking. If you grew up shelling pecans on the porch with family, this is the product that takes you right back.

Same orchard, same harvest, same Grade 1 standard. The only difference is the stage of processing. We do not save our second-rate nuts for the cracked product. These pecans are pulled from the same lots we shell for our retail halves, then cracked and bagged instead of fully picked. You are getting fresh, current-season Texas pecans either way. The cracked format simply lets you save some money by doing the picking yourself.

It does take some patience, we will not pretend otherwise. Most folks find that an hour at the table yields a generous amount of pecan halves, and the work goes faster once you settle into a rhythm. A bowl for the cracked pecans, a bowl for the shelled meat, and a bowl for the spent shells is all the setup you need. If you would rather skip the picking step entirely, our shelled pecan halves are right there waiting for you. And if you want a tip from the orchard, save the leftover shells. They make wonderful smoking chips for your next bar-b-que.