Forum: cooking.stackexchange.com
Tags: <knife-skills><coconut>
Title: How do you open a coconut?
Question: Without killing yourself or others?

Answers:
sents: text: The best way to open a brown hairy coconut, not a fresh green one (assuming you are right handed, I imagine that sinister people can reverse the instructions, but I've not tried it).
text: First image the coconut is a head, everything is related to this, so the visualization is important.
text: The three holes are the eyes and mouth of the face.
text: They naturally form an eyes/mouth thing.
text: you'll see that it only really looks like a eyes/mouth one way up.
text: stare into its eyes (this bit is not so important, but I like to do it).
text: Now hold it in your left palm, under its chin/where the neck would be, with the 3 holes in the coconut arranged like the eyes and mouth of a face looking out to the right, mouth below the eyes, with the hair pointing up.
text: There will be a slight 'seam' running between the eyes and back over the top of the head.
text: Then take a large, heavy knife and using the FLAT side of the knife (not the sharp edge), a meat cleaver works best, strike the coconut hard across the coconut's 'forehead', where its hair line would be, aiming to impact exactly on the 'seam'.
text: You might need a few goes to get the crack right open, but sometimes it can be done in a single strike.
text: Get this right and it will crack in a straight line from ear to ear along the hair line.
text: Works a treat.
text: And usually you can use the shell for something as you get a clean break.
text: Once you have the first crack you can either prise apart or rotate the coconut in your hand and hit it a couple more times on the uncracked parts, following the same line as the first crack, to completely separate the two pieces.
text: Alternatively you can stick it into the oven for 15 mins, @400F, after which the shell should have started to crack.
text: Then you can use the tool of choice to finish the cracking, rolling pin, hammer, wrench, flat of knife another coconut, whatever.
text: But where is the fun in that?
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/210/Sam Holder
score: 21
sents: text: The easiest way is to use oven.
text: I find that 190C/375F is convenient.
text: Before placing it in the oven you should drain the water from the coconut.
text: Drilling the 2 of the 3 holes with a hammer
text: + screwdriver works fine.
text: After removing from the oven after about 15 minutes use a hammer to easily crack open the coconut.
text: If it's not easily cracked, let rest for a few more minutes.
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/207/Recep
score: 9
sents: text: The brute force way is with a machete :)
text: However, you can also do it with a small handsaw (which is useful if you want to use the shell for something - they make cool hiding places for fishes in an aquarium).
text: Otherwise, you can split it with a wide chisel and a hammer.
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/62/txwikinger
score: 4
sents: text: If you're just looking to get the milk out, poke two of the "eyes" and drain.
text: Don't laugh, but find a concrete floor and quickly bang the coconut and it will split into fairly even pieces.
text: Be careful because the edges can get sharp....
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/177/AttilaNYC
score: 3
sents: text: Along the circumference of the coconut, draw line with water.
text: This creates a fissure line.
text: Then hit hard on this line with a small rock or equivalent & Voila!
text: Dont believe me?
text: Try it!
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/846/user846
score: 3
sents: text: Here's a video of how to do it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGcG3CwqHm0
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/22209/david
score: 0
sents: text: When I was a child, my father would bring coconuts home.
text: He would puncture the eyes and drain the juice, then my siblings and I would run up to a second-story window and drop the coconut onto the asphalt.
text: Worked pretty well.
answer_details: author: cooking.stackexchange.com/users/9210/Adele C
score: 0

Summary of the answers:
A machete or hammer and chisel can be used to break it open, but a hacksaw is more precise if you want to use the shell later. If you want to use the milk, poke holes in two of the eyes and drain it.
A method using brute force is normally the most straightforward. However, you can also just make a small hole if you just want to pour the milk out.