How to Hollow Out a Coconut

A hollow coconut makes a great house for a hermit crab, and can also be used as a birdhouse. It can also be used as a festive decoration for any party, or for just clapping the empty halves together, and pretending to ride on a horse! You can even use it as a bowl or cup!

1. Buy a ripe coconut. Cut it in half with the back of a cleaver or a large, heavy knife like a machete. Never use the sharp blade of a knife to hit a coconut! The blade may bounce back and cut off one of your fingers or poke you in the eye! Again, use the BACK of a heavy blade to open the coconut. Hold the coconut with your left hand (right-handed people). The 3 eyes of the coconut should be facing away from your hand. Using the BACK of a heavy cleaver, rap the coconut in the middle ONCE then turn 1/4th of a turn. Rap in the middle again and keep going around the coconut rapping in the middle. You may have to go around the coconut 4 to 6 times and suddenly it will crack and the water will start dripping out. Keep rapping and turning until the crack has gone all the way around the coconut and it splits apart.
   
   
2. Place the 2 coconut halves on a cookie sheet and place in a oven at 150 degrees for anywhere from 1 hour to 4 or more depending on the size of the coconut and the thickness of the meat. People in the Micronesian islands of Palau, Ponape, Chuuk, the Caroline's etc., will lay it face up in the sunshine for a number of days till the meat separates from the shell. Similarly, you want this to happen at LOW heat in your oven. After a few hours the white meat will separate from the shell and you'll have a clean shell to use for your handicraft projects.
   
   
3. This photo shows someone using a sharp knife to dig into the coconut. This is not correct and you could hurt yourself if you slip... even cause the blade to break and stab into your body somewhere. Don't do it! Any meat that fails to separate from the nut can be scraped out with an old, slightly curved spatula. For example, take a SMALL steel spatula and place it on the back of the coconut. Press down to bend it to the curve of the nut. Now use it INSIDE the nut to scrape out the white meat which has been loosened either by heating in the oven or sun drying.
   
   
4. Finished.
   
   

Use the BACK of a heavy knife such as a cleaver to rap around the middle of a coconut to open it. Hold the coconut in your left hand with the 3 eyes pointing outward. It will NOT break with a few raps. Rap it in the middle and then turn it 1 quarter turn and rap again. Keep doing this and the nut will split around the middle.

To make a coconut grater, buy a heavy duty concrete chisel about 2" wide at one of the home improvement centers. Use a file or grinder to gently round the corners. Place the chisel in a vise and using a hacksaw, cut notches about an 1/8th of an inch wide all along the front edge. This includes the corners you just rounded. Make the with of these "tines" look similar to the spacing of a fork. Note you only need to go about 1/4" deep as you will only be scraping the coconut against the outside edge of these sharpened tines. Take a small file and file each side of the tine to a point. You now have a nice scraper.

Using a 3' bench or heavy stool, attach the coconut shredder by drilling two holes through the chisels handle. Place one hole close to the beginning of the head and one at the rear of the handle. You want this chisel coconut shredder to be tight! Use 1/4" diameter or larger hex headed bolts and place a split (lock) washer under the bolt head then pass the bolt through the chisel and into the hole you made in the bench or stool. Again, using a split washer and a lock nut, tighten the bolt. If you can't find a lock nut you can use two nuts. Tighten the first then tighten the second behind it to act as a lock.

When shredding a coconut half start gently! Start at a 22 degree angle on the outer edge of a coconut and gently begin to scrape. Let the succulent white meat fall into a bowl. The idea is to scrape one or two strokes downward (never upward) and rotate the nut and continue scraping from the outside inward.

Hacksaws are another method of cutting into the coconut (nut). However, it is not simple and can be dangerous as the hacksaw usually slips off the rounded nut. Simply work in short sections all the way around the coconut. Do not try to cut through in one large line, just a small line until you reach the meat, then rotate and continue, kind of like opening a can with a ratchet-style can opener.

• Exercise caution when using sharp instruments, such as knives.