Black Walnut Harvest

[joamo]

We have a black walnut tree in our backyard and so does our neighbor. We've lived here six years now and this is the first time I've considered harvesting, mostly because it was a bumper year and our squirrel population is down.
I collected a grocery sack full, a small portion of what I could have gathered, and just finished removing the hulls, which yielded a gallon of nuts. Washed them as best I could and they are on some drying racks now.
Does anyone have any tips on hulling and cleaning walnuts in large quantities? Surgical gloves shredded quickly and the nuts still have a lot of hull residue on them. I'd definitely like to find better ways to prep the walnuts since next year's harvest would probably be around 5-6 gallons, maybe more, from both of the trees.


One more question, are they worth the effort?

 

[Matt_Bloodletter]

I've never been a huge fan of walnuts - wish they were more like their Pecan cousin. But there are great uses for them:

* Honey walnut shrimp (awesome)
* Baklava
* Any salad with toasted/candied walnuts

I think the reason I detest them frequently is that they don't contribute much in texture or flavor to the ubiquitous brownies and fudge recipes. But toasted, they take on a whole new character.

 

[PugslyCat]

A family friend used the following technique:
1) Array the walnuts on a concrete driveway.
2) Cover the walnuts with plywood.
3) Drive pickup truck over plywood repeatedly.
4) Sweep up everything and separate the hulls from the cracked nuts.
5) Spend the rest of the winter getting the meat out of the shells with a nut pick.

If you can find an old hand cranked corn sheller at an antique shop they actually do a pretty good job at removing the husks. I was told that right after my late uncle's sheller went to the scrap dealer. Had I known that a couple of weeks earlier I would have kept it.

If you are in eastern Nebraska I may be able to come up with a bucket of walnuts for you. I'm down to just the one tree, but have no desire to do all that work to get the meat out of them.

 

[The Knize]

My Grandmother made a black walnut cake that was out of this world. No idea how to process them.

 

[strop]

My grandmother would just throw a pile on the dirt/gravel drive way and drive over them for a couple of weeks. Took the hulls off, but rarely cracked the nuts.

 

[Talal]

black walnuts are gorgeous..

a local chef preserves them in wildflower honey.

i scoop a tablespoon into my salad dressing (balsamic and olive oil) for a nice boost

highly recommended

 

[Hirsute]

I've heard that tumbling them with large rocks in a clean cement mixer is effective. No direct experience though.

 

[PugslyCat]

I stumbled across this hand cranked corn sheller. It seems to be a countertop version of the larger one my family had. The listing mentions that it works for hulling walnuts as well.

 

[joamo]

I'll keep my eye out for a corn sheller. I may have harvested a bit past the prime this year, but it lets me experiment some and plan for next year. A friend raved about black walnut schnapps a friend of hers would make back home in Germany. I found a few recipes using either vodka or a dry red wine base and green walnuts. I'll be trying those next year too.