Need black walnut harvesting tips
 

We are blessed with a number of black walnuts right out our back door. What are your suggestions about collecting, removing hauls, drying, cracking and then finally picking meat.

My bigest question right now is. Should I only pick up the fallen ones that have green hauls or should I go about picking up those that I don't know how long they have been there? Should I get the ones on the ground that are black and/or black with mold on them?

Thanks, babysteps

You can pick them all up. The green covering is just an outer layer that will dry up and peel off anyway. Then the fun begins. You have to have some way to crush the hard shells on the things. I've heard of all kinds of ways to do it, right up to crushing them in the driveway with the car.

We have one in the backyard also, and to tell you the truth, they're just not worth the effort as far as I'm concerned.

Here's something I just posted on another thread:

Harvesting Black Walnuts
In Minnesota, black walnut trees are usually ready for nut harvest from August through September. Follow the tips in this message to learn how to harvest them.

Allow nuts to ripen on the tree. The husk changes from solid green to yellowish green when ripe. Press on the skin of the walnut with your thumb. Ripe nuts show an indentation.

Walnuts discolor when stored with husks attached and their flavor is ruined. Wear gloves when removing husks because dye from the husks stains. Remove husks by applying pressure to the nut's ends. Pound side to side with a hammer while wearing safety glasses. Husks also can be softened in a container of water, then peeled. A third alternative is to place nuts in a hand-operated corn sheller.

After hulling, rinse the nuts, preferably outdoors since nuts stain. Next, check for insect feeding by placing the nuts in water. Nuts without injury will sink.

Do not compost walnut husks. Juglone, a chemical released by walnut trees, is toxic to some vegetables and plants, such as tomatoes.

Curing--The nuts must be cured. This prepares them for storage and allows flavor to develop. Stack the clean, hulled nuts in layers two or three nuts deep. Place them in a cool, dry, well-ventilated area, out of direct sunlight for two weeks. When nuts are dry enough to store, kernels break with a sharp snap. If cured improperly, mold forms.

Storage--After curing, store unshelled nuts in a well-ventilated area at 60 degrees Fahrenheit or less. Cloth bags or wire baskets discourage mold. Keep the relative humidity fairly high, about 70 percent.

To shell nuts, soak them in hot water for 24 hours. Drain and soak again for two more hours. Cover the nuts with moist cloths until you're ready to crack the shells. Bake nuts at 215 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes. If stored at room temperature, use within a few weeks. Shelled nuts can be refrigerated up to nine months. They can be frozen for up to two years.

HERE'S ANOTHER:

How to Harvest and Store Walnuts
Walnuts come in two types: the familiar English walnut and the native American black walnut. While the English walnut gives up its hull fairly easily, removing a black walnut's hull takes some doing - so much so that some hardy souls have been known to drive over the hulls with a car.


Steps:
1. Harvest walnuts in early fall, from September to October.

2. Knock or shake hulls from the tree once the shells are full but while the hulls are still intact, or gather them off the ground as soon as they fall.

3. Remove the hulls, protecting your hands from stains using rubber gloves. Rinse with water to remove the tannin.

4. Spread the shells in the sun to dry and cure for two to three weeks. Kernels will break cleanly when bent if completely dry.

5. Keep nuts in the shell in a cool, dry area for several months. You can also shell nuts and refrigerate them for several months, or freeze them for longer storage.


Tips:
Walnuts are delicious when eaten raw, tossed into salads, added to prepared dishes or used in baking.

English walnuts are milder; black walnuts have a stronger, distinctive flavor.

babysteps,

We have quite a few black walnut trees (about a hundred around our cabin and a bunch more mixed in about 20 acres of hardwoods).

We started out not realizing how many black walnuts we had.....until we had a carpet of nuts a few years ago. We did a lot of searching and trying to figure out before we bought a commercial huller that does 1,000 pounds an hour. We also have a cracker which cracks 600 lbs an hour. (We ultimately plan on buying nuts and processing them for resale).

You do want to let the nuts ripen on the trees and drop (don't pick them). Once they have dropped you want to get them hulled fairly quickly. As has been pointed out, if they sit in the hulls they will discolor and get an overly strong taste....not something you want. We do not use ones that have mold on them.

I can tell you that soaking them does not work. You will get a nice stain or wool dye but those hulls will still be on the nuts.

Some people recommend putting them in your driveway and driving over them. We have not tried this.

Once you have the hulls removed you will want to dry the nuts. I have heard two weeks and some people say three weeks. We just cracked the ones we collected last year and they are perfect (last year was a bad year and we didn't get very much).

We already have about 75 lbs of nuts (in the shell) and most of them haven't dropped yet. I'm figuring we will have about a ton or so by the time we are done.

I highly recommend the Nut Wizard for picking up nuts. We got one last year when I picked up our cracker (Mohabi I). We just took delivery of 4 more Nut Wizards. Here's the link for the crackers and Nut Wizards... http://www.mohabi.com/ Tell them Mike in Ohio sent you.

Hope this helps.

Mike

Keep them coming!
 

Wow these are great tips.

I just love black walnut. I know it's a lot of effort, but there is no taste like it! And I've got them falling all over each day. Each day I pick up about a 3 gallon bucket full. I've got them in the garage and plan on hauling some this weekend.

I've been searching on the web for some steps and think I've got a good idea of how to go about removing hauls and cracking the nuts. However, nothing beat real life experience. Thanks!

If anyone else has tips I would love them.

babysteps

Mike you must have a tons of nuts... that's quite a machine and investment.

HI,
which ever way you decide to hull them don't forget to wear gloves they will stain your hands and it doesn't wash off it pretty much has to wear off..

Two years ago we had about 4 tons and we weren't in a position to process them. Our goal is to build up to processing about 250,000 lbs a year.

That may sound like a lot but the largest processor in the country did about 32 million pounds.

We are looking at buying a second huller because when the nuts come raining down they tend to all drop in a short time. We hear a constant thud thud thud as the nuts fall. At first it's disconcerting but after a while you get used to it. We do have to be careful around the cabin as a walnut falling 60-70 feet can really clonk you on the head. We can delay cracking if the cracker is down but the hulling needs to get done as quickly as possible.

One thing I forgot to mention is that after hulling you can drop the nuts in water. The ones that float you can toss as they have little if any nutmeat in them. The ones that sink have nutmeat.

Mike

Wow Mike! All these years I've been doing it the hard way with a single nut cracker and a nut pick. That or really low rent and using a hammer and a old nail.

I usually try to get a couple of gallons of meats. I have tons more out in the woods but my patience is usually at an end by the second or third gallon. If I'm really ambitions I'll fill a 5 gallon crock. The black walnut is the only walnut in my book. The only walnut I bake with.

Sounds like pencil time for me. Costs of equipment vs. price of nutmeats vs. what they are paying for walnut trees. I'd hate to cut one of my walnut trees but the prices they sometimes pay for high quality walnut trees is incredibly tempting.

I have hickory nuts, I really like them because the hull just falls off. They taste like walnuts to me, but man, I think the actual nut is harder to crack than a walnut (as far as getting meat out after cracking)

It's a good year for hickory nuts. I'm thinking it's a better year for them than walnuts. We have lots of shagbarks. We plan on collecting at least a few hundred pounds this year. They are too small to run through our huller but we can adjust our cracker to crack them.

Mike

Babysteps, Here is a link I have found useful.

http://tomclothier.hort.net/page21.html

He's located in northern Illinois, other than that I don't know much about him, but if you click on the archive link you'll get the full story.

Looking for someone with hauler.
 

Great advice.

Dose anyone in Southern Indiana or N. Kentucky have a hauler?

All this talk about nut meat is making me hungry for chocolate cake with black walnuts....mmmmm

We started collecting and hulling black walnuts this weekend.

The initial numbers are 54 5 gallon buckets (270 gallons) in the hull collected which yielded 13.5 5 gallon buckets (67.5 gallons) of nuts in the shell after we hulled them. There's roughly 1.5 to 2 times that amount still on the trees.

Mike

Since we are talking Black walnuts .I was wondering,If any one would have some leaves I can get.As they are for use in the beehives, I'll pay shipping too thanks

I just got a bunch today from freecycle. I only have one tree in my yard, so went looking for more :) A couple years ago, I got the hulls off by setting them on concrete, "dropping" a heavy piece of wood on them, then (with Nitryl (sp?) gloves) removed the hulls. Unfortunately, I didn't store them right :( With all the handy tips here, I'm ready to try again!!!! :happy:

The hulls are usefull too, as a dye, but I still need to learn more about that. I know they do a wonderful job dying skin! :stars:

James, what do you use the leaves for? We use the bark in our smokers sometimes but have never used the leaves for anything. Most of our trees have already lost their leaves. DW and I were just having a conversation about how black walnuts are the last trees to leaf out and the first to drop their leaves.

Mike

One thing I need to add is store the nuts to be cured in a rodent proof box. The first year we had them the animals got them all. :(

For the small operator like myself, this is the neatest thing I have ever seen. Check out http://www.redhillgeneralstore.com/A52207.htm
I hope I got this right, I mostly read and boys didn't take typing in 1954.

How to make a Walnut Huller. (I haven't tried this yet, it came out of a book)


Take a 2" X 4" or 6" stud and cut to about 5 foot lenght. Cut both ends in a 45 degree angle as if making a on/off ramp. (which you are). Lay this peice flat on level surface and place two 2 X 4's on their sides on each side of the bottom and nail or screw in place.(the ends need to me cut at a 45 angle also) What you end up with is a trough U that you place green walnuts in and then drive your vehicle over it to smash the green off.

The book doesn't mention the best way to crack them and get the goodies out. My daughters have been picking up walnuts out of our yard and our Aunts yard next to us and planning on selling them. They think they are going to get rich. They are buying them now for $12. per hundred pounds.

One year we counted the walnuts we gathered from our 1 tree and it was over 10,000 from just the 1 tree. We used to have a problem with the pesky little red squirrels getting into the house/attic/walls, but we finally took care of that problem with a small hav-a-hart live trap.

We do not harvest the walnuts....personally don't have the time or patience....we take them to the far edge of the property by the pine trees and dump them in a pile.

I do believe that price is in-shell and not in-hull. At least that is what Hammon does (They are the 800 lb gorilla of the industry).

Mike

12 bucks per hundred pounds in the shell? Wow. I probably have umpteen thousands of dollars just laying on the ground on my property just waiting to be picked up.

Definitely something I need to be looking into.