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In short has anyone tried this type:

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... of cherry pitter?

(example of the type).

Machinery for pitting cherries is a real art form. Anyone know if these work?

What concerns me is that: with the more traditional type:

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I guess you "have to" align it nicely (I suppose, with the "seam" at the top),

whereas with the "auto-plunger" type they just sort of fall in randomly?

But perhaps .......... my fears are groundless?

Any comparative experience?

Fattie
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1 Answers1

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I actually just pitted about 10 gallons of cherries using a plunger style pitter very similar to that one.

The cherries are gravity fed from the hopper into the chute. Only one cherry can fit at the bottom of the chute and it lines up nicely with the plunger.

From time to time cherries would fail to fall into the chute and I would have to clear the traffic jam. The majority of the time they fell in just fine and I could pit about a cherry a second.

The plunger does not have to line up with the top of the cherry, it will eject the pit from any orientation. Manual pitters do make for more attractive presentation because you can pick the exit wound location. I used a metal straw to good effect but it was just too slow to pit in bulk.

Sobachatina
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    I would back Sobachatina, though my experience was a bit more frequent jamming that I would have liked. Mine were home grown cherries so varied a lot in size which I think made the jamming more frequent. If you want a presentation with stem on, then I would go with a manual pitter type option myself. The stems I think would greatly increase jams and alignment issues. – dlb Jul 10 '18 at 12:59
  • @dlb- I totally agree that this machine does not work well if the stems are still on. I also concur that it works best with "standard" sized cherries. I had some that were smaller and, although they fell into the chute just fine, they sometimes failed to eject properly. – Sobachatina Jul 10 '18 at 15:27
  • I use a manual one and works fine. A bit boring for large quantities,.. But that's what kids are for, aren't they? – roetnig Jul 11 '18 at 11:46
  • My cherry pitter actually will occasionally miss the pit when it's fed really huge, fat cherries. Once I get off my tree tend not to be quite a big, so it's usually not an issue. Otherwise, it works really well. – PoloHoleSet Jan 15 '19 at 16:24