 Inside the Shelling Plant is a vast mechanical labyrinth of conveyor belts and machinery. It can all be very disorienting to visitors. Only occasionally the carns are visible for a moment before disappearing again into a machine. The meat of a becarn is divided into two halves. The objective of the Shelling Plant is to keep the two pieces intact during processing. It's the most popular way to eat becarns and is used most commonly when it comes time to make stonins candy. This process is over 80% effective, meaning around 8 out of 10 becarns will be cracked without damaging either half. All of the becarns from the sorting plant begin the Shelling process here. All of the dust and soil accumulated from farming, sorting and transportation must be washed off. The water and conditioner helps in another way as well. The moisture level in the becarn must be brought to a specific point so that the machinery can properly shell the nuts. The becarns will soak in these tanks until they have absorbed the correct amount of water. After the nuts have been properly hydrated, they are poured onto a conveyor belt which brings them to the cracker. A small bucket chain carries the becarn to the cracking chamber of the machine. The nut is cupped by two small pieces of metal where a quick blow from a piston snaps the shell. This device will individually shell approximately 450 becarns per minute. That was the easy part. The rest of the building is dedicated to separating the edible bits from the hard shell. Both becarn meat and shell go into the machine. Depending on the size of the nut being processed, the workers can engage how large the piece coming out should be. However, not every becarn will make the cut. With all this heavy equipment, some unwanted breaking is inevitable. These pieces will certainly not be wasted however. Candies such as the becarn brittle, chocolate bark and the divinity becarn log are all made with diced nuts. Now that the becarn meat is out of its protective shell, special precautions must be taken to make sure they are dry. Becarns that are obtained are too much moisture will have a different taste. A sample will be taken out for a hydration test. If a batch is too wet, it must be recorded here and sent to a dryer. Back in the main wing of the plant, the becarn halves are almost separated from the pieces of shell. From here on, the processing will be carried out by hand. A fleet of workers stand by picking out pieces of shell or broken becarns only complete halves are to be kept for this specific batch. The becarns are boxed up and weighed. Extras will be either added or subtracted to bring the box to its weight requirement. As one final precaution, each package slide through a metal detector to find any foreign objects that may have contaminated the package. Some of the becarns will be sent to other companies and distributors around the country. Some will be sent just a few hundred yards away to the Stamen Candy Production Plant.