After the Shea kernels have been dried the next step is to crush the nuts using a mortar and pestle. One of the reasons I like the traditional method of processing shea butter is that the women are fully engaged in maintaining the quality of the product through every phase of production. I noticed that at every phase they continuously sorted and picked out damaged nuts or debris that might have inadvertently been incorporated into the batch.
The roasting of the crushed nuts serves to soften the nuts and make the next steps of oil the extraction easier. I have seen the roasting of shea nuts done in two ways. The crushed nuts are roasted in an open pan, or they are placed into a roaster as shown below. Both ways are fine as long as there is no burning.
