How We Make our Shea Butter:
The Shea nuts that we use to make to
make our pure, unrefined shea butter are collected from wild shea trees
over vast areas of Africa Sahel ( Burkina-Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana,
Guinea Conakry, Mali, Niger, Togo, Senegal).
1. After the shea fruits are
collected, they are blanches in hot water to cause the kernel inside to
shrink away form the shell. This is done so the kernels are not
damaged when the shells are removed.
2. Once the shells are cracked and
the kernels are extracted, the shea kernels are placed in the sun to dry
for a prolonged period. The extensive drying is necessary for the nuts
to maintain their shelf life of five years.
3. The dried shea kernels are
inspected and sorted to remove the undesirable kernels before the are
brought to one of our center and stored in our warehouse.
4. After inspecting the dried
kernels one again, we crush them in a large, wooden mortar or with an
electric grinder.
5. The crushed shea kernels are grilled
slightly to reduce the water content to a desirable level.
6. The next step is to grind the
roasted and crushed shea kernels into a fine powder. This is done either
with a grinding stone or an electric mill.
7. The shea kernel powder is
placed in a clean basin and mixed with clear, potable water. the shea
mixture is whipped by hand until the color changes. When white spots
appear, warm water is added. This causes the shea fats to rise to the
surface and separate from the non-oil partition.
8. The shea fats are collected and
heated slightly to remove any remaining moisture. The clear oil is
filtered into clean basins to cool.
9. After the shea oil has cooled
down, it is stirred very carefully to initialize the crystallization
process and form the shea butter. this part of the process is very
critical and requires a lot of experience.
10. The final step is to pour the
partially crystallized butter into our containers, where it continues to
crystallize. the containers are stored in our air-conditioned storage
room until transport.
