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Yesterday, I wrote about how to use coconut meat to make coconut milk and coconut flour. Making coconut milk is easy, unless the meat is still in the coconut. Getting it and the water out without stress or mess is a far more difficult task.

I’ve seen the islanders using a machete to remove husks in under a minute, as well as using an upright pole to de-husk the nut. It works marvelously, proven techniques used for centuries. However, even when you get to the nut, you still have the trouble of getting a liquid out of a spherical object. This ends up being messy, wasteful, or both.

Enter the CocoDrill.

A simple T handle with a short piece of stainless steel charpeend into a three-point cutting tip, this acts as a coring blade to remove a 1/2 inch plug from the bottom of a coconut. This gives easy access to the water inside.

In all honesty, after getting the hang of it, it takes longer to describe than it does to just do.

Here goes a pictorial though:

Get a green coconut. This does NOT work very well (if at all) with a brown coconut. The coconut water is tastier, in my opinion, with a green coconut anyway. Of course, you will also need a CocoDrill.

(Like the bar top I made with tabletop epoxy and stuff found on our local beach?)

Locate the bottom of the green coconut. This is the end away from the stem. This will also be the heavy end.

Think of it this way. The husked coconut is a giant egg, and the part we want is the yolk. While it hangs in the tree, it settles to the bottom of the husk. That help?

Push the CocoDrill into the flat side towards the end of the hard inner shell, aiming for the area with the eyes. Once you reach the harder part, rotate the CocoDrill to cut through the hard shell. A few twists and you should be through.

Remove the CocoDrill, use the clean out tool to push out the core from the CocoDrill, rinse it, cap it and put it away.Or use it on the next coconut.

As to the coconut, it now has an access hole to allow you to use a straw to drink directly from the source or pour out the water.

I find that by putting a second hole in  the coconut, it makes drinking the water directly without a straw much easier.  Using a finger over the second hole to regulate the amount of air going in, you can easily drink the water without any air glugging or messy splashing – the water pours out in a steady stream.

Once you’ve removed the water, a single sharp blow from a machete will then cleave the coconut into two pieces. This may take some practice, but without the water inside, it is a simple matter of splitting the nut.

At this point you can use a spoon or a butter knife to remove the meat.

If you look at this picture, you can see the location of the CocoDrill in comparison to the whole nut in a cross section view.

See how the nut itself rests to the lower end of the husk? Take note and plan accordingly.

Can you do this with a screwdriver or a drill? Sure! But, is the screwdriver or drill bit stainless? Clean? Handy at all times? Would you stir your sweet tea with a screwdriver or drill bit? This is a consumable product we are trying to get to.

The way I see it, since I am slap in the middle of a LOT of coconut palms (they grow very well here), I’ll just carry my CocoDrill in my day pack as part of my EDC. And since most folks that have coconut palms pay folks to haul them away, I will probably have plenty available for my personal use.

I love free food 🙂

The CocoDrill comes with several options available from the same manufacturer. The CocoDrill alone, with stainless steel drinking straws, or the option I chose, with a pair of nut milk bags. I opted for this so that I could make my own coconut milk.

So if you like in an area with coconuts readily available (and you like coconut water), I’d highly suggest getting one of these.

Or if you are like me,  one for each car.

(For the record, I purchased this with my own funds, and was in no way compensated by the makers of the CocoDrill for writing this review)

Peace,
db

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