Threshing and Winnowing Beans

This year we decided to up our drying bean game. Not only did we plant two 30 ft rows of drying beans (black, kidney, and cannellini), we also planted the prolific whippoorwill cowpeas. On a much smaller scale in years past, we've just hand-shelled the legumes. But with the volume we harvested we knew we'd need a better system for threshing this year! 

Serendipity had me reading a book on cultivating pulses and the various heirloom varieties. In a side note, the author described their threshing box. Essentially at 2ft x 2ft plywood box that the dried pods are placed in and then you dance and stomp on them until the beans are free. 

Then it was time to winnow. We set up a fan and began blowing away the chaff, removing the bad beans, and collecting the rest in a mason jar. In all, we have about 1 1/4 pound with our first harvest of cowpeas. While this method doesn't remove the labor, it definitely sped up the process! Now to tackle the rest of the dried beans in the garage...