I used some vice grips n a hammer got to be a better way 5 gal bucket worth๐คฏ
Leverage son, leverage. Whatever you can come up with that has a handle to give you leverage will be a lot easier on you. Getting the "goodies" out as my mom calls them isn't necessarily easier no matter what you do.
If you look up a Arbor press, that's along the thought process of what I built for my mom. But there would be lots of other ways using leverage to crack the same nut, pun intended. Ha.