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Lessons in harvesting and processing black walnuts

greg mosser

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Location: the mountains of western nc

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posted 3 years ago

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i don’t think i used that recipe exactly, but i’ve made black walnut nocino a few times. i’ve started to add less and less sugar, and veering from liqueur territory into something more bitters-like, but it’s still pretty tasty.

june is generally the time to collect green walnuts. you want them early enough that you can just cut through the shell with a knife.

Merilee Karr

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posted 3 years ago

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Mathew Trotter wrote:There are no black walnuts out here, but there are many around town when I visit friends on the weekends.

Merilee Karr

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posted 3 years ago

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Mathew Trotter wrote:There are no black walnuts out here, but there are many around town when I visit friends on the weekends.

[Not sure I'm formatting this correctly. This is Merilee Karr responding to Mathew Trotter]
Mathew, where are you in Oregon that you have no black walnut trees near you?
I live in Portland and forage plenty of black walnuts in Multnomah and Clackamas Counties.

Phoebe Rehoboth

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posted 3 years ago

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Very interesting notes on uses for black walnuts. When we finally found our home with some land, we discovered that most of it was covered in black walnut trees. Our haphazard attempts at harvesting them yielded a lot of effort and minimal usable nuts.

I do want to warn anyone considering planting black walnut trees, or using the shells or leaves for compost, that the trees secrete a compound called juglone. It's in every part of the tree: wood, leaves, stems, roots, nutshells. It is a natural herbicide, and functions to protect the trees from other plants growing too aggressively around them. It also kills a great many desirable plants, including many kinds of flowers, and, sadly for us, nightshades and apples. So large sections of our land can't be used to grow apples, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, and several other susceptible things. Be careful where you plant a tree, and don't use compost from walnut trees in areas where you're trying to grow these things.

Benjamin Abby

Posts: 47

posted 2 years ago

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A question for the hammer users: do you get quick enough with that method that would compete with a nut cracking tool (https://www.amazon.com/Black-Walnut-Nut-Cracker-Steel/dp/B00WTTTDKS?crid=IVW4ZFIBHSCC&dchild=1&keywords=grandpa%27s+goody+getter&qid=1634142854&sprefix=grandpa%27s+goody+&sr=8-3&linkCode=sl1&tag=stonedapefarmer-20&linkId=7b2b89ae9cc2404a688437163f923dbc&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl). I have some walnuts but I know people with lots of them so I was thinking of getting a device like this but if the hammer is about as quick then I guess I need to get better with it- I'm like Mathew and find the hammer frustrating.
Cimarron- did you try roasting them and did that work?
Cecile- did you try to make drink?
With the husks I always played; I took family and neighborhood kids and we'd throw them up against a brick way to break them. Works on your pitching and can be competitive and kids enjoyed doing it for quite a while. We would hit them with a bat also and it'd hit the brick wall and sometimes it'd be gone forever but we tried to catch it off the wall if we could. Not the best method if you wanted to account for every one of them but it worked good for us.

greg mosser

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Location: the mountains of western nc

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posted 2 years ago

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in the hands of someone with a lot of experience, the hammer might be just about as fast as a cracker. if you’re annoyed by the hammer and don’t have the knack yet, you’ll probably be happier with a cracker. i don’t have experience with that one, but they all perform about as well as each other when you’re used to them…so i would personally probably go for a less expensive one.

Cécile Stelzer Johnson

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Location: zone 4b, sandy, Continental D

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posted 2 years ago

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Benjamin Abby wrote:A question for the hammer users: do you get quick enough with that method that would compete with a nut cracking tool
Cecile- did you try to make drink?
With the husks I always played; I took family and neighborhood kids and we'd throw them up against a brick way to break them.

Yes, and my fake nocino is pretty good. I did not have access to immature black walnuts though, so I used regular dry, shelled walnuts. Here is my recipe:
In a clean 2 quart jar, place 2 cups of shelled walnuts,[I used the roller pin to break them in smaller pieces so I could retrieve all of the good walnut taste]. 1 bottle of vodka, 1/4 cup of brown sugar, 1/4 cup of maple syrup, a tablespoon of vanilla extract. Wait 8 weeks. filter.
I found that it was a bit strong for me so I cut it 50/50 with cherry juice to rink it. Yum. As a matter of fact, I'm happy I saw your post: I'm running out of nocino. I'm going to make some more tomorrow.
I didn't have to get the husks out, obviously, but the best trick I know is to use sharp stones, about walnut sized, and water and run them through a cement mixer: The stones will get them pretty clean but you may have to run it a couple of times, picking up the clean ones, leaving the husks on the driveway and sending the rest for another run until they are all clean.. The dark juice will stain everything but pouring it on a gravel driveway will insure that your driveway is free of weeds thanks to the juglone! win-win stacking functions: making nocino and weeding the driveway...

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Benjamin Abby

Posts: 47

posted 2 years ago

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Thanks, you've convinced me to stop being a whiny runt lol. It was more annoyance questioning if this was really what people did since it was such a mixed bag- some would break open clean and I thought some online tutorial helped and then the next 15 would give me hell and wonder why I was even trying this. I'll just have to get better at it.
And I love the weedkiller idea also; I plan on dyeing more things next year so the green part for that and the leftovers to kill weeds; then the walnut to eat and I guess the shells for compost or a path. Maybe use them to toughen up my weak skin lol.
I might try the nocino with green walnuts if I make it. I gave up drinking about a year ago so if I started back I'd definitely make some weak stuff. I've really thought about making my own alcohol with apples, grapes, and so on and then making drinks like nocino. I've made my own beer with yeast and sugar but it seems when I get apples I really get apples so this is one way to use them. I already make apple cider vinegar with them. But I think my apple trees like the all or nothing approach. Either they are going to repopulate the world with their seed or they aren't going to even try (usually a late frost issue; sometimes brown rust disease).

Bernard Zamostny

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posted 1 year ago

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Once you have cleaned the hulls from the walnuts do you need to keep them from freezing if you store them in a shed or unheated garage?

May Lotito

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posted 10 months ago

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I experimented a bit and found out while cracking black walnut with a hammer, orientation of the nut is very important. I place it with the pointy side down in a shallow hole in the tree stump and hit the other end with a hammer. The nut will split in the longitudinally rather than shattering into small fragments. I usually need to turn the halves 90 degrees and hammer again. The rate of getting big pieces even the entire quarters are much higher this way. The nuts are so tasty even without roasting.

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Ella Reed

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posted 1 month ago

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May Lotito wrote: The black walnuts are not easy to separate from shells like English walnuts do.

I'm so glad you said that! After attempting to shell some black walnuts given to me by a friend, I was about ready to give up on the idea of ever growing walnuts. Interestingly, when I finally was able to get a nut out in a big enough piece to see the overall shape of the nut, it appeared to be a heartnut, which is supposed to be easy to shell. Let me tell you, it was not! Perhaps commercial heartnuts are more thin shelled and easier to remove, I don't know. But that's helpful to know that English walnuts at least are not as difficult to shell as those black walnuts were.

Cécile Stelzer Johnson

pollinator

Posts: 1511

Location: zone 4b, sandy, Continental D

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posted 1 month ago

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Ella Reed wrote:

May Lotito wrote: The black walnuts are not easy to separate from shells like English walnuts do.

I'm so glad you said that! After attempting to shell some black walnuts given to me by a friend, I was about ready to give up on the idea of ever growing walnuts. Interestingly, when I finally was able to get a nut out in a big enough piece to see the overall shape of the nut, it appeared to be a heartnut, which is supposed to be easy to shell. Let me tell you, it was not! Perhaps commercial heartnuts are more thin shelled and easier to remove, I don't know. But that's helpful to know that English walnuts at least are not as difficult to shell as those black walnuts were.

Black walnuts are notoriously hard to shell. Once you have removed the green outer shell [best done with a cement mixer sharp rocks and lots of water] you have to crack the nuts, hopefully along the crack, and then you will still have to use a nitpicker to remove the meat from this contorted shell. There is no way it comes out it one piece. The nutmeat is delicious but you will spend more calories removing the meat from the shell than you can get from eating them!
They say that heartnuts are easi-er to shell. I wouldn't know: I don't have heartnuts. Here is a "how to" that looks more doable. It is still a lot of work:
https://www.hetnutsbedrijf.be/english/heartnuts/cracking-heartnuts
They say I can grow Carpathian walnuts in my zone [4b] I've never seen one around. They say that Carpathians are a hardier variety of English walnuts. I plan to give it a shot next year but I have my doubts...

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