Trimming machines: compare kg/h, not drums
A mechanical harvest trimmer — not to be confused with the vineyard leaf removers used in the open field — is chosen on three quantities: the hourly throughput actually sustained, the cut quality obtained on your own material, and the cleaning time between batches. The rest is bodywork.
kg/h dry or kg/h fresh: the confusion that makes you buy twice
No trimming capacity is usable without the material state at which it was measured. The mass ratio between fresh and dry is of the order of 4 or 5 to 1: a machine rated at 15 kg/h wet and another at 3.5 kg/h dry may handle the same harvest. The finish at which throughput was recorded changes the result by a further factor of two.
- Workshop or small-batch scale: a few kilograms per hour on dried material. The machine relieves a small team; it does not replace one.
- Industrial capacity: machines that deserve the name are counted in tens of kilograms per hour, with semi-continuous feeding, conveying and integrated extraction.
Dry or wet trimming: two distinct routes
Dry trimming takes place after drying. It preserves certain volatile compounds better and removes any time pressure, but it fouls the cutting parts and generates inhalable dust, which calls for capture at source.
Wet trimming takes place at cutting, on fresh material. Faster and easier to clean, it requires drying to start immediately, and therefore a free drying room the same day. The route chosen organises the whole workshop.
Cut quality: breakage, heating, trichome loss
An electric trimmer is judged on what it damages, not on what it cuts. Three indicators to have measured during a trial:
- Adjustable fineness: the ability to tune aggressiveness to the species and the intended result, rather than a single factory setting.
- Breakage rate: the share of fragmented material that drops to by-product.
- Heating: any rise in temperature during the pass is paid for in volatile compounds.
No machine works without loss of glandular trichomes: that is why drum models include recovery of the detached fraction.
Cleaning between batches and labour cost avoided
Throughput only means something across a full day: stripping down, brushing and reassembly are subtracted from productive time and govern batch separation. Examine the stainless steel construction, tool-free dismantling and the time actually observed.
The economic case is read from your own schedule: manual rate in kilograms per person per hour, fully loaded hourly cost, annual tonnage, days tied up. The ratio between machine throughput and manual rate depends too much on the species to be stated in advance — it is measured at your site.
What we list today
One machine appears in this section: a compact 90 W dry trimmer with an interchangeable stainless steel drum (120 and 150 µm meshes), rated at 3.5 kg/h on dried material. That throughput belongs to the workshop or small-grower scale, not to a capacity of tens of kilograms per hour. Higher capacities are studied project by project.
For volumes that do not justify a dedicated machine, the general catalogue brings together a wider offer of bench-top and hand-operated trimmers. The complete workshop is described in the harvest and drying chain, and cutting in our article on when to cut and how to trim.
