Drying Coconut

Intro: Drying Coconut

Take coconuts from store and make your own delicious dried coconut.
We use this as a snack on its own, as a topping on yogurt, in our homemade granola and even I our curry dishes.
This coconut has nothing added. It is 100% coconut.

STEP 1: Find the Perfect Coconut

We like to get a coconut that you can here the milk inside swishing around. The kids get a kick out of drinking it once we are done.

STEP 2: Smash Away!

This is the part where you can let out your frustrations and smash something.
I like to use my meat hammer to smash the coconuts open.
You can't be a whimp here, you must hit the coconut pretty hard. You can hit too hard, so be careful.
Be carful to watch your fingers and wear safety glasses ( needed to say that)
You will find the sweet spot once you hit it a couple times.

I alway check the coconut for cracks after each hit. This is how I get the coconut water (milk) out, through the crack.
Once you find a crack stick a butter knife in the crack and twist. The twisting will widen the crack and you should be able to pour out the water.

STEP 3: Coconut Water

You get about a 1/4 cup of water out of each coconut. So 1/2 cup with two.
I always pour through a strainer to get any coconut hair out of the water.
Pour over ice or Putin fridge and cool.
Enjoy.

STEP 4: The Hard Part

Ok so you now have two halves of coconut., now what.
You must pry out the 'meat'.
I seem to always use a butter knife.

You can get the knife between the shell and meat. If you are lucky you can fret it out pretty easy. Sometimes it is pretty hard to get the meat out and takes some time and patience.

STEP 5: Shred It!

Using a food processor and a grater attachment shred it.
I shred it with the brown skin on, can't even taste it.

STEP 6: Slow Cook It 200 Deg. F

Set oven to 200 degrees F.
Place shredded coconut on parchment paper on a cookie sheet.
Place in oven and mix every 20 minutes until light golden brown.
Let cool.

You can store in a ziplock bag or in mason jars.

Comments

[rogiervdheide]

This is really not a good instruction. The only good way to open a coconut and dry the coconut meat is as follows. This is safer, easier, and takes much less time.

1. There is no milk in the coconut. That is a mistake. There is water. Coconut milk is man-made of ground coconut meat.
2. First make a small hole in two of the three weak black spots that you find on one side of the coconut. BTW, if these spots are recessed, the coconut is getting too old.
3. Let the water come out through one of the holes you just made. The other hole is to let in air. You can easily catch the water in a glass
4. Heat your coconut during ten minutes in the oven that is preheated at 350°F or until the first crack appears in the coconut shell. No crack? Heat longer, keep an eye on it, and remove the coconut from the oven when the first crack appears.
5. You can take the shell off easily. The coconut meat has shrunk a little bit and easily comes off the shell. Just be careful as the nut is still hot
6. Use a patato peeler to peel the thin brown skin off the meat; or leave it, it is edible
7. Cut, shred or grate the coconut meat.
8. Dry it in the oven at 120°F.

This is the only way!

[browngnome]

When the meat is hard to ory out, hold the shell over a flame and it is much easier to get out.

[chadovision]

Thanks for the tip. I will try that next time.

[sixsmith]

super easy (and safe) way of opening a coconut is to tap around the equator with a hammer, back end of a hatchet, back end of machete, basically blunt trauma. that's after poking through the eyes to drain the milk.
youtube of someone doing what I mentioned, jump to 1:25 to see the cracking of the nut. and it seems the youtube won't play here, but following the link seems painless.

the dried coconut looks delicious, I don't actually really like coconut but I'm working on developing a taste for so if I ever get stranded on a tropical island I'll be good on food :P

[chadovision]

Thanks for the extra tips.