Like a lot of other people, I have memories of tripping and stepping on ugly, gooey black walnuts in the yard when I was growing up. They were a serious pain when I had to mow the lawn, and I thought they were weird, not food--no way they could actually be related to regular nuts that we eat, right?
As I worked my way through the culinary industry, black walnuts took on a new identity as a treasured, expensive product that was near impossible to source. When I was opening up my first restaurant, I looked at buying them from an exclusive purveyor, and, did a double take when I saw the price tag: over 40$ a lb. Read that again.
The nuts came vacuum sealed, and were incredibly perfumed--more than any nut I'd ever had, and they had a different shape than normal walnuts, but, unlike pictures of other black walnuts, ever single one was a complete, perfect quarter of nutmeat.
I never saw another black walnut like it for about 10 years. Luxury goods are catnip to any chef, and, even though I couldn't stomach buying the individual, vacuum-packed black walnuts, hand-cracked from an old man in Italy from that specific purveyor.
I eventually found a cheaper supplier (of only slightly lower quality, but that's relative here) in Hammonds, now the premier supplier of black walnuts in the United States, who sell them at industrial scale.
This post is all about harvesting your own black walnuts though--everything about them I've learned: harvesting, cleaning, storing, cracking, cooking, and everything in between. Why would you harvest your own black walnuts with large scale purveyors in business, you ask? One word: quality.
Refer back to the crazy expensive, ultra-perfect nuts. Hammonds nuts, while available in bulk, are mechanically separated, and they take a little beating during the process, in flavor, and shape. Simply put: cracking black walnuts by hand is how you get the most intense flavored, perfect-looking nuts possible.
Period. You'll be able to smell the bowl of nuts as you crack them, and pressing them between your fingers will yield a fresh, aromatic oil. You'll be able to see black walnuts as a luxury, and brag to your friends about your command of a lost art.
Harvesting
There's plenty of methods and opinions out there, but after a couple years of harvesting, here's what I've found to be the easiest for me. Once the trees start to drop their nuts, around early October, I wait a bit for the hulls to soften before I gather them.
What happens here is that fly larvae will get into the thick green hulls, and begin feeding on them. After a bit, the hulls soften a little. From here, I go outside with a plastic tub, and, wearing gloves and using boots, I rub my heel over each nut, and the once hard green hull simply melts away.
Some nuts may need to be stomped a bit, and that's fine. What's happening here, is that I'm allowing the fly larvae (walnut maggots) to digest the hull, soften it, and in the process do a lot of the work of hulling them for me.
If you harvest the walnuts green, with the hulls firm, you'll need to find a way to remove the hull yourself, and you can find plenty of ideas for how to do that online. My advice, is make your peace with creepy crawlies, and employ them to help remove the green hulls for you.
Cleaning
From here, the nuts will still be covered in black goop, and they need to be washed. It's easy. Fill a big Rubbermaid or plastic container with them, get the hose, and fill the tub with water.
Using a stick or some other crude tool, swish the nuts around in the water to help loosen the hull goop the larvae helped you with. Thanks, maggots. Dump the water, then repeat the wash and swish process a couple more times until the water runs clear.
Curing
Once the nuts are drained, the need to be cured/dried. Put the nuts in a container to dry in a cool place with ventilation--a porch or garage is fine, as is outside if you don't have too many squirrels. Do not leave the nuts in water for longer than it takes to wash them, or water will get into them, and they can mold during the curing process.
Avoiding moldy nuts
You want your nuts dry, that means no water. There's a number of ways you could go about it. A net bag works, as will laying the nuts out on screens, or in even a cardboard box as pictured, as long as you have a fan or something similar to move air over them, and turn the nuts around occasionally.
Even a small amount of water in the bottom of a container can cause the nuts to mold. You can also dry black walnuts in batches in a dehydrator, (preferably a large square model like Harvest Maid or Excaliber) and that works very well.
Putting them on cookie sheets in an oven with an adjustable temp around 150 could work too, but I would crack the door to avoid cooking them.
Allow the cleaned nuts to dry and cure for a week or so until they're completely dry. From here, the nuts are shelf stable, and can last for a few years, allowing you to crack and enjoy them as you like.
Outsmarting the squirrels
It can be tempting to store the nuts outside after washing, especially if you don't have room to put the nuts on screens, but know ye this: squirrels are talented nut thieves, and, if you leave the nuts out unnatended for even a few days in an area where squirrels roam, rest assured they will find your stash, and help themselves.
Even a single squirrel can greatly deplete your harvest. I learned the hard way when I picked and processed all the black walnuts I could find one year, left them in a box outside, only to find that over the course of a week, the single squirrel that runs around our yard had helped himself to over 2 gallons of nuts. Lesson learned.
Cracking
The most difficult part, and why I swore I would never crack my own black walnuts. One taste of a freshly cracked black walnut though, and you'll be a believer--guaranteed. I didn't understand the secret until Sam Thayer showed me his process.
Black walnut shells are amazingly hard--much harder than English walnuts, and you won't be cracking these in a rocking chair with Grandpa for Christmas, rather, you and grandpa need to go to the garage and make a little nut cracking set up. Here's what you'll need.
Workbench or other firm surface
Cracking surface. I use a molacajete here, and I highly recommend it, since it's also the greatest spice grinder you'll ever meet.
Since they're made from basalt/volcanic rock, they're incredible heavy and hard, and no amount of nut cracking or missed hammer blows will ever do them harm. If you don't have a molcajete or other firm surface, you can use a vice.
The secret to getting whole ¼'s: a metal snips
Snips are crucial--indispensable really. Without snips, even with a great hammer technique, you will never get the picture perfect nuts you see in my images here. The snips are used to spot-treat problem shell parts, releasing the perfect quarters. See my video for a hands-on demo.
Nut pick, preferably homemade
Conventional nut picks are obtuse, useless tools for black walnuts and other nuts like butternuts and shagbark hickory. Simply put--they're just too thick, and all they're going to do is crush your precious nutmeats.
The good part is, it's easy to make a homemade nutpick. Take a dowel, preferably made from birch so it won't split, and cut it into lengths a couple inches long.
Now, pound a nail about halfway into the dowel. Next, pound the head of the nail flat using a hammer--this will be your "pick". Sam Thayer showed me his process of making these, and they're light years beyond conventional nutpicks.
Each pick can be tailored slightly to different nuts too. All things considered tough, a nut pick is really a last resort for me, and, once you get the technique of using the snips down, you can probably get by without them.
How to crack
Here's what I do. Take each nut, and, holding them by the points or seams, give a good crack to the flat portion of the nut just until you hear it crack--don't smash them. Now rotate the nut and give them another crack on the seam (top or bottom).
With enough practice you should now have a cracked nut, with 4 whole quarters. Put the nuts in a bowl and continue until you have a large bowl of cracked nuts, then go though each of them, using the snips as needed to free the whole quarters.
The best black walnut cracker/sheller
There's a few products on the market that make things easier, but one of them stands above the rest. The Grandpa's Goody Getter is by far the easiest, most efficient black walnut cracker I've ever used. It's an investment, but it's worth it.
Cooking
To me, black walnuts are really the Rolls Royce of nuts, and there's nothing like a freshly cracked black walnut with it's unique scent and curious aroma. The flavor is incredibly strong, and keeps throughout cooking in whatever you make, bread, cookies and cakes, or simply sprinkled over granola or yogurt.
Black walnuts make everything better. But, once you crack your own, and understand what goes into the process, you'll probably think twice about chucking handfuls of them into things.
One thing to consider, is how you appreciate the shape of the nut itself. Chefs like to chop, dice, puree, mash, and generally manipulate things. Sometimes this can work out, like in my black walnut molasses.
But, most of the time, especially when I have a freshly cracked batch of nuts, I may not do anything to them at all in the way of chopping or crushing, since I just went through a lot of work to get all those perfect halves. One of the purest ways to enjoy black walnuts is to simply sprinkle them on things, and let them be.
To Toast, or not to toast?
Chefs also love to toast nuts, and, unfortunately I can tell you that, true to chef stereotype, I've literally screamed at people for not properly toasting nuts. Here's the thing though: most nuts in professional kitchens are nut 5 minutes removed from the shell.
Once the nuts are shelled, the perfume and aroma is at it's peak--and they may need no toasting at all, completely contrary to what I drilled into my line cooks for years.
As they sit in on a shelf in a box though, the flavor diminishes, and, after, say, a month or two, a gentle toasting will revive them a bit, and I recommend it for nuts that've been stored.
Various
Rancid nuts
Black walnuts are fatty (guess where black walnut oil comes from) and, from there, it follows that plenty of oils, just like the nuts themselves, will deteriorate in flavor over time.
Black walnuts are widely known for their tendency to go rancid stored at room temperature (one time someone sent me a 10 lb box of rancid nuts). How do you know if the nuts are rancid? Trust me, if you have a nose, you will know.
Always store black walnuts in the fridge after cracking. For long-term storage, vacuum seal them and freeze in usable portions.
Yellow streaking
Once I started cracking black walnuts from trees in Wisconsin, I noticed that some had yellow streaks. Terrified of the nuts being rancid, I threw plenty of them out. That was a mistake. Referring back to rancid nuts, if your black walnuts are rancid, you will definitely know.
As far as I can tell, the yellow streaking is a harmless anomaly (Sam Thayer said it might be related to temperature somehow) but, if you know the science behind yellow streaking in black walnuts, let me know. Rest assured though, I've eaten plenty of nuts with yellow streaks, and they're just as delicious as other black walnuts.
Uses for cracked nut shells and scrap
After you've cracked some black walnuts, you'll have plenty of shelled nuts, and probably a few with small pieces of nut meat left inside.
There is still goodness left in there that you can share with others, specifically birds and squirrels. Here's what I do: I save all my nut cracking scrap in a box in the garage, then, as needed, I make piles of the spent nuts on a rock in the backyard.
Every morning while I drink my coffee, I get to witness the dance of birds and squirrels who come to feast on the goodness still left in the shells—it's a great way to share your harvest!
Squirrel bait
We know squirrels love to steal black walnuts. If you like to eat squirrel occasionally as I do, know that spent black walnut hulls and shells make some of the best squirrel bait you can find. Put some spent nut shells in a trap and watch them come.
Green, unripe walnuts
Black walnuts, and other walnuts, give us a lot more than just nuts and oil. The green, meristematic nuts have long been used for making edible products and things from condiments to preserves and liquors.
Green walnuts are outside the scope of this post, but I do harvest plenty of them, typically in June in Minnesota and Wisconsin. You want them about the size of a ping-pong ball, or sometimes smaller, depending on the recipe you're preparing.
If a knife or pin can't be stuck through the young black walnut, it's too old, but can still be used to make nocino. Unripe black walnut leaves are also harvested to make different things, most notably black walnut bay sauce, a sort of vinegar infusion.
Leftover black walnut shells
I like to toss the spent nuts outside during the winter as food for wild life. Birds and squirrels will flock to your property to pick tiny pieces of nuts from the shell. If you like to eat squirrels, black walnut shells also make great bait for traps.
Butternuts: the white walnut or juglans cinerea
Butternuts are similar to black walnuts, but also very different, so different that I'll write about them in a separate post. For our purposes here, know that if you find some butternut trees, you're lucky, since they suffer from butternut canker, and they're numbers are dwindling.
In Minnesota, they're listed as an endangered species. The flavor of the nuts is nothing like black walnuts. Butternuts are fresh, buttery, and without any sort of tannins like English walnuts. They're delicious, but far more difficult to find than black walnuts.
How to harvest and store black walnuts
Equipment
- Large plastic tub
- Boots
- Gloves
- Gunny sack or boxes for storing/drying
Instructions
Harvest the nuts
- Harvest the nuts in late fall, using the heel of your boot to remove the green hull. Pick the nuts up with gloves as they stain.
Washing
- Wash the nuts until the water runs clear
Drying
- When the nuts are clean, lay them out to dry, without putting them in a large pile, in a ventilated area. A garage works.
Storing
- Once the nuts are dried, they can be stored for years for use as a food.
Bev Ward
After extracting the 'meat'(kernel) from the shell of the Black Walnut, there is alot of debris(from the shell) mixed in with the precious 'meat'.
Previously, visually. . .I carefully removed 3-5 small slivers of shell from about 1/2 cup of Black Walnut 'meat'.
An old Cherokee trick is to place the 1/2 cup of Black Walnut 'meat' in a pot of warm water and the lighter 'meat' will rise to the surface while the heavier shell-slivers will sink. Works!
True, the shell-slivers were accompanied by the huge pieces of 'meat'. However, that was fine since we are looking at 2-3 really-really large kernels. Using a strainer I can easily remove all the light 'meat'(kernels).
Alan Bergo
Thanks Bev, a good reminder. Sometimes I'll boil the shelled nuts to extract some stubborn meats out, typically I call it black walnut milk, and I use the liquid to cook wild rice afterwords.
Julia McCabe
I love black walnuts, and grew up with them. A year or so ago, I paid an exorbitant amount of money for black walnut pieces in a bulk bin at the organic grocery store. On a quest to make nocino, I found that several of my friends have black walnut trees that I can go gather from. I'm excited to make the nocino, and then go back in fall to get the mature ones to make ice cream, my favorite black walnut treat as a kid.
TR
I just somewhat reluctantly bought some black walnuts in bulk from the healthfood store. I had a memory that they tasted pretty strange but they were out of regular walnuts so thought I'd try. Well, I remembered quickly why I never buy them. They're extremely pungent/funky. I don't know how people can eat them. But this article made me think that maybe they're rancid? How would I know? They taste like they did the last time I tried and swore off them.
Any indicators of whether they're just rancid or my taste buds just aren't designed to like them?
Thanks.
Alan Bergo
If they're rancid, they will smell absolutely foul. My guess is that you just don't like black walnuts. Black walnuts are a delicacy, and, just like alot of other things that fall under the category, like caviar, matsutake, truffles, etc, some people won't like them, and some will pay good money for just a taste.
NavyDave
The black walnut trees in my yard and and along the bike trail here in Bowie, Md have matured early so I have been taking zip lock bag fulls to Walter Reed to give to people who work at the appointment desks and NEX. I use and old school mini flathead screwdriver to open them but will use the nail and dowel for back up nut pickers.
roy roland
when i picked them fresh off the ground i crack some from different location and most have yellow streak or spots in the meats this started last year but this isnt the normal color of black walnut meats you daid these are still good to eat is this still true
Alan Bergo
They're fine to eat yes.
MikeR
After hulling, walnuts dried and kept in net bag for a few weeks. Now when I shell them, at least half of them have dried out meat in them. Did I do something wrong? Used power washer in garbage can to wash off the hull debris. I had removed the floaters, then dried them out on floor with a fan for a day or so.
Alan Bergo
Hey Mike. From what I know, you didn't do anything wrong. For whatever reason the nuts didn't form correctly, the tree rejected them, etc. Sometimes I've had this happen with black walnuts that drop very early, which means that the tree rejected them or is having stress or some other issue. My advice is to move around to different trees and collect a mixture of nuts. Once you find a good tree, it will be a gold mine. Let me know how they work out for you.
scott
I experienced the same issue with the dehydrated any useless meat.With hundreds of nuts to crack I did a little experiment and did the float test on all of my remaining nuts. Only 100 out of 1000 sank. Of those 100 that I cracked open all had well developed meat ready to eat. So I did a little more cracking with the other 900 and only about one in 20-30 were any good. lesson learned. These were all off of two trees. I have to believe someone out there can tell us some detail about what is happening. Do they sit too long on the ground? I wonder if there is some optimal time to pick them up after they fall off the tree. First time in the black walnut harvest I need it to be more successful next year. thanks.
Alan Bergo
Scott, I'm not an expert on tree rejection here, but that has to be part of the problem. Sometimes trees reject nuts for some reason, this year we had a cold snap in the spring that I suspect decimated the black walnut harvest. I was only able to gather about 100 pounds of them, when I should've been able to get far more. This year, my favorite tree did the same thing that happened to you, albeit in a smaller quantity since it wasn't masting (producing lots of nuts). I noticed the nuts fell a bit early on that tree, so the early drop has to be part of how you can root that out. It is frustrating. When I get a chance to ask one of my friends whose an expert about why the trees reject nuts I'll try and circle back here.
Timothy
Most common cause of shriveled nut meat here in Kentucky is - in my experience - lack of sufficient water during nut formation... a dry spell. Best practice is to crack a handful of nut from a tree before spending time gathering from it; can save a lot of grief.
Alan Bergo
Thanks Timothy
David Britton
My Dad used a brace-and-bit to drill an exact diameter holes in a wooden board through which he would then drive harvested walnuts to knock off much of the husk. Then the shelled remainders air-dried very well for cracking. Tempting exposure in the garage for mice who love 'em as much as squirrels do, for a good number disappeared into the "secret stash" which I only discovered in late November's hunting season to be my nearby boots stuffed full. Rascals.
JW
I'm curing a large batch of black walnuts now, and there is a few with light white fuzz on part of the shell. (mold?) I read somewhere that this means I have to throw out the whole batch... Tell me this isn't so! The walnuts look fine otherwise, and seem to be drying well.
Alan Bergo
You don't have to throw out the whole batch, but it makes me think they didn't dry fast enough. If they taste foul after curing you will know.
John Otto Stoll
I have hundreds if not thousands of northern Michigan black walnuts. Does anyone want them?
Alan Bergo
This is not a site for exchanging goods
Lynda B
We have many old black walnut trees on our property. I have opened some perfectly formed and meaty black walnuts and found them to have no aroma and not much taste. Trees are over 50 yrs old. Any idea what that is about? Fresh off the tree a few weeks ago, little fruit fly larvae ate away the hulls, meat is the right texture, etc., but they are very large nuts. Can they grow too large and get a diluted flavor (like what can happen to some fruits)?
Alan Bergo
I haven’t heard of that, thanks for commenting. There should be some variation between trees, but a lack of flavor in black walnuts would be new to me.
Steven
Was just wondering a couple things.
1 When you put the nuts in a bucket of water, some float, why, and also the meats can be different then other meats, are they fine to eat.
2 Some of the meats inside the nuts will shrink and turn dark or black and taste different, are they safe to eat.
Alan Bergo
Nuts that float are likely hollow or aborted-discard them. Overly shrunken or discolored nuts should not be consumed.
Chuck Walker
Back in the 60's we collected about 1000 black walnuts each fall. Our method for processing was to spread the green nuts in a single layer on the basement floor and let them dry all the way to the nut, with the outer shell turning black and crispy. We turned them 2 or 3 times. At this point you could walk the husks off or hit them with a 1" steel pipe elbow on a short piece of straight pipe. To crack the nuts to get larger pieces we found it best to use a vice, turning the nut once - much greater control over the cracking process and easier to pick afterwards..
Alan Bergo
When the hulls are allowed to decompose naturally, connected to the shells, it compromises some of the flavor. Hammons (the largest producer of black walnuts in the world (30 million pounds net last year) encourages all harvesters to harvest the nuts as soon as possible so they may be hulled to keep the best flavor.
john
I tell you what, I had plenty that weren't gone black, and I took to the green ones with a pairing knife and medical gloves until my hands went off. Can't imagine the machine they use to harvest the unblackened ones.
j.c. brooke
once the nuts are washed and dried, (still in the shell) can they be stored in below freezing temps through the winter? i live in northern michigan and do not have a heated pole barn.
Alan Bergo
Hmmm, that's a good question. As nuts can be frozen just fine, and it actually works well for preserving the quality and oils of freshly cracked ones, I would assume so, but the devil in the details could be repeated thawing and freezing in the spring. I am speculating here as I always keep mine in a non-frozen place.
John
If you can't stick a pin through them then wouldn't they be too young, you wrote too old. Thanks! Got a box full of them and wanted to make sure I wasn't allowed to roast them to get the shell off. Glad I read this post.
Glen Isner
I've cracked a lot of nuts and experience has taught me that if you are picking little pieces out of shells you are wasting your time and degrading your product with shells. Take the larger pieces and discard the rest. It's quicker to crack another nut than to pick for a crumb.
Alan Bergo
I agree. I get almost exclusively whole quarters now, especially since I started getting grandpas goodie getter.
Pete
Too bad I didn't see your article til today. The squirrels devoured our whole bag!
Alan Bergo
It's happened to me. They just love them.
Patton Bybee
I live in Tennessee and love black walnuts. I bought a hand operated corn sheller and hull them green, works great. I also made a tumbler to get rid of dried hull. This really helps in cleaning walnuts.
Alan Bergo
That's great Patton. I've heard of lots of different ways people have figured out to clean them.
Corbin
I took the advice of other sources before finding yours and attempted to dry some of my clean walnuts in the sun for a couple of days. I've noticed that most of not all of the shells now have cracks in them. Do you think I should avoid the sun or perhaps it was a combination of soaking too long in water and high temps from direct sunlight?
Alan Bergo
Soaking in water, from my experience can potentially ruin the finished nut. I have never had that happen before. I don't see anything wrong with sundrying them, just make sure the squirrels can't get to them.
Danny
I started collecting black walnuts last year and am getting some now. I start a fire in my fire pit, boil the them in water for 10 minutes. After they cool the shells come off easy, even the green ones. I then wash them and sun dry (away from squirrels because I have been robbed.) I’ve found that boiling them reduces the pungent flavor and have had people who do not like them, say they’re more tolerable. It works for me, because I spent most of my years despising them, and now I don’t. Maybe I’ve just acquired a taste fir them now. 😊
Alan Bergo
Hey if it works for you, that's great. Keep spreading the walnut love.
ken deats
We used to throw the brown walnut husks onto the driveway and when the car drove over them, it would leave the walnuts. We would dry and then crack them with a hammer onto a little anvil.
Alan Bergo
Hey Ken, yes, plenty of folks still use that method. Thanks for commenting.