Best acorns/oaks for eating? And for animal feed?

I tried searching on here and I don't know if I was just using the wrong search terms or what, but I was surprised by the lack of results I was able to turn up for this question...

Basically, I am considering planting more oak trees at some  point in the nearish future and I know different oak species produce acorns with differing flavors, quality, size, and quantity. Obviously it will vary from tree to tree as well,  and location to location and based on soil and probably weather, etc... but just as a general rule of thumb I wanted to get a feel for which species people prefer.

I have read a few places that white oaks tend to have less tannins than reds, which I wouldn't have thought of but makes sense.

I found a decade old question on Quora where one answer mentioned the book "A Sanctuary of Trees" saying that chinquapin oaks produce sweet acorns- and apparently suggests calling them sweet oaks instead.

Another answer said (with a lengthy answer to back up their opinion) that the best acorns to eat in North America come from Quercus michauxii (cow oak? I admit, I don't think O have ever heard of cow oak.). That poster claimed them to have the largest and sweetest acorns of any white oak they were aware of.

(If you want to see the full answers in their original form, see here:  https://www.quora.com/Which-types-of-oak-trees-have-the-best-acorns-to-eat )


And I saw another website which posted a list of about 20 of what they claimed are some of the lowest tannin acorns.... :

https://nutgeeks.com/best-tasting-acorns/

Ideally, I would like to hear more specific experiences and opinions from people who have tried specific species though.

Plus, I trust you Permies more than randos out on the wild web.


Aside from just the flavor of the acorns, I have some follow up questions to consider:

- Acorn size

- Production quantity

- Are these acorns also good for animal feed? I assume they would be, but want to make sure I am not overlooking something. Is there some reason that a different variety of oak would be better to plant in an area where I might plan to have pigs forage eventually once the trees are big enough?

- How long does it take the tree to start producing significantly?  (If you don't know because you just already had them on your land or whatever, obviously that's fine. )

Hi John,

One of my favorite permie authors, Eric Toensmeier, recently published on the topic of oaks for food.  Try the below link to learn more.  This work of his is licensed CC BY-NC ND 2.0, and is titled:

"The Status of Oak Breeding and Domestication as Food for People and Livestock"

https://www.perennialsolutions.org/my-new-publication-on-breeding-oaks-for-food?mc_cid=9fb9a73060&mc_eid=9649864e44

Oh wow, that's very timely (looks like he just posted it this month!) and seems like it may have exactly the kind of information I'm looking to learn about.

Thanks George. 🙂

Bur Oak acorns are widely regarded as being quite edible with minimal processing, and in my own experience I have found them palatable straight off the tree. I wouldn't try eating too many raw Bur Oak acorns in one sitting because they do still have tannins in them, but they are low enough that I'd imagine they'd be tannin free after only a day or two of soaking.  

On the other end of the spectrum, I've heard that Chestnut Oak (quercus montana) holds onto its tannins very strongly, despite being in the white oak group, and that it's impossible or at least very difficult to leach them to the point of edibility. I haven't tried them myself,

As for flavor, I've heard from a variety of sources that acorns of the red oak group have superior flavor to the white oaks, but they take longer to leach the tannins.

For animal feed, sawtooth oaks are known for being extremely heavy bearing of small acorns that are eaten by wild turkeys, etc. I've heard a single sawtooth oak tree can fill two full size truck beds with with acorns.

For early bearing, I've heard that Dwarf Chinkapin Oak can start producing nuts at 4 or 5 years, and Gambel Oak before 10 years. Both these types also have the benefit of being small trees, so you can realistically fit them in a corner of your yard or a hedgerow.

+1 on the Eric Toensmier publication on acorns, lots of good info in there. I'd also recommend this lecture by Osker Brown, "Nuts as staple foods": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJpitVC4mzs

without a truly sweet no-leaching-needed acorn (which i’ve heard exist but are seemingly pretty hard to come by [and admittedly developments in that direction may be documented in that toensmeier book]), i think you can expect to do some amount of leaching for human-food acorns. having leached and made flour from at least 7 species, i’m not sure there’s enough variation in difficulty of leaching to separate out any of the species on that grounds.

how to decide what you need? how soon do you need a yield from these trees, or are you just trying to set up the best system, regardless of the decades you may have to wait for bearing? what kind of equipment do you expect to need? it’s a lot easier to deal with white oak acorns, which fall clear of their cap, with tools you probably have in your kitchen already, than the giant caps that don’t let go, from burr oaks, though word is that burr oak acorns (at least from some individual trees) are some of the sweetest, and i’ve seen some advertised as not needing leaching at all (i actually bought one of those some 8 or 9 years ago, but of course it’s got a ways yet before it yields).

my favorites for flour, chosen for amount of yield (how easy is it to get a good amount from a tree or two) and flavor (because even after leaching, the different species taste a bit different) would be white, chestnut, sawtooth (the basis for an entire acorn food industry in s. korea), and probably northern red, though not all trees of the reds yield enough to feel worth it.

and i reckon the pigs don’t care much what kind of acorn they get, but maybe one of the higher oil-content species, like black, pin, or southern red would add something nutritionally? i’m sure they’d be happy to clean up under any kind of oak at all.

You might want to try the Emory oak (bellota, (Quercus emoryii), common in borderland southwest mid-elevation savanna. Although it's a red oak, the tannins are low enough that they're eaten fresh. We used to pick them in early July, right around the time the monsoon started.

I found a pile of burr oak acorns in a trash pile, they have a good taste, and are very large. The ones I planted are still only as tall as me, don't know how long they'll take to produce. Those are by far the biggest and best I have ever tasted, and I suspect pigs would adore them!