Harvesting your own black walnuts is a labor of love gaining popularity with more and more foragers. This post will show you everything I've learned: harvesting, cleaning, storing, cracking, cooking, and everything in between.
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.
Black Walnut vs English Walnut
Both walnuts are related and are in the Juglandaceae family. Black walnut trees are Juglans nigra and are common wild walnuts. and English walnut trees are Juglans regia-the same walnuts sold in grocery stores.
The trees are slightly similar and both have opposite, pinnate leaves but the nuts are very different. The pictures below illustrate some differences between both trees.
English walnuts have very thin shells compared to black walnuts, and the flavor is very mild, where black walnuts have incredibly hard shells and a very strong, earthy flavor. If you like the flavor of both nuts they can be interchangeable in cooking.
Where to Buy Black Walnuts
Hammonds is now the premier supplier of black walnuts in the United States, who sell them at industrial scale at an affordable price. When I need large amounts I order from them. They're also the only supplier that sells black walnut oil.
Hammonds nuts, while available in bulk, are mechanically separated, and they take a 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.
Why would you harvest your own black walnuts with large scale purveyors in business, you ask? One word: quality.
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 Black Walnuts
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 let them help remove the green hulls for you.
Nuts can also vary drastically in size from tree to tree, so you'll also want to look around and find trees you like the best.
Processing Black Walnuts
After removing the hull the nuts will still be covered in black goop and need to be washed. 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 clinging bits of hull. Dump the water, then repeat the process a few times until the water runs clear.
Discard any nuts that float, and do not leave the nuts in water for longer than it takes to wash them, or they can mold during the curing process.
Drying / Curing
Once the nuts are drained they need to be cured/dried. Put the nuts in a wide container to dry in a cool place with ventilation--a porch or garage is fine but make sure squirrels can't get into them.
A net bag works, as will laying the nuts out on screens, or in a cardboard box as long as you have a fan or something to move air over them, as even a small amount of water in the bottom of a container can cause the nuts to mold.
The most important thing is that your nuts are bone dry. There's a few ways to dry the nuts I'll go over below.
Box Fan Method
I like to use sheet trays and a fan in my garage, as illustrated below. It typically takes 2-3 weeks for my nuts to dry completely.
Dehydrator
You can also dry black walnuts in batches in a dehydrator, (use a large square model like Harvest Maid or Excaliber) and it is the fastest way to dry them.
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. Use this as a last resort.
Allow the cleaned nuts to dry and cure for roughly 3 weeks or 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 squirrels are talented nut thieves, and, if you leave the nuts out unattended for even a few days they will find your stash and help themselves.
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.
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.
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 heavy and hard, and no amount of nut cracking or missed hammer blows will harm them. You can also use a vice.
The secret to getting whole ¼'s: a metal snips
Snips are indispensable and without them, even with a great hammer technique, you will never get the picture perfect nuts you see in my images. 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. 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. 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.
How to crack by hand
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.
After cracking, rinse and dry the nuts to remove any tiny shell particles that can crack teeth.
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 and baked goods like cookies and cakes, or just sprinkled over granola or yogurt.
Since you just went through a lot of work to get all those perfect halves, I think it's good to leave them in large pieces, generally. One of the purest ways to enjoy black walnuts is to simply sprinkle them on things. Ice cream is pretty epic too.
More Recipes with Black Walnuts
Additional Information
Do fresh nuts need to be toasted?
Once the nuts are shelled, the perfume and aroma is at its peak and there's no need to toast the nuts, contrary to what I drilled into my line cooks for years.
But, as nuts sit in on a shelf the flavor diminishes and, after a month or two, a gentle toasting will revive them a bit. I always toast nuts that've been stored or frozen.
Rancid nuts
Black walnuts are widely known for their tendency to go rancid stored at room temperature. How do you know if the nuts are rancid? If you eat it and it tastes terrible, like mold, it's rancid.
Always store black walnuts in the fridge after cracking. For long-term storage, vacuum seal them and freeze.
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) but, if you know the science behind yellow streaking in black walnuts, let me know. Rest assured, 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. I save all my nut cracking scrap in a box in the garage, then I make piles of the spent nuts on a rock in the backyard.
Every morning I get to witness the birds and squirrels who come to feast on the nuts 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.
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 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
Ingredients
- Waterproof gloves
- 5 gallon bucket or another container
- Drying racks or milk crates
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.
- For large batches, you can put the nuts in a 5 gallon bucket, cover them with water and stir with a paint or mortar mixer drill attachment to remove the hulls.
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. They'll dry up to twice as fast with a fan blowing on them. A garage works great.
Storing
- Once the nuts are dried, they can be stored for years for use as a food. You can test a walnut to see if it's done by cracking some, the nut meats should be loose in the shell. Freezing black walnuts after cracking.
Mark S Moos
Great article, very comprehensive. I'd like to let you and your viewers know that GARDEN LOPPERS are the perfect way to quarter the processed black walnuts to prepare them perfectly for the nippers. I've made a couple videos about this, and how I do the initial cleaning process, available on my channel at the website link I've provided. I can crack and clean a dozen perfectly quartered black walnuts in less than 20 minutes on average! Enjoy, and I look forward to trying the recipes - for me, Toll House cookies are not complete without my black walnuts!
Alan Bergo
That's a nice tip. Thanks Mark.
Alexandra
Hi Alan,
I just collected a grocery bag full of black walnuts which had very soft black husks, or some with even no remaining husks at all. Unfortunately, I was not able to get to removing the husks until about 3 days after I collected them and so they sat all together in a brown paper grocery bag during that time. When I removed the husks tonight, there was no visible mold but a strong musty smell and the husks were pretty much completely disintegrating in the bag. Do you think these walnuts are still safe to consume (once washed and dried)?
Thanks for your thoughts and insight!
Alan Bergo
Hello. They will be safe to consume, but extended contact with the liquid can transfer some aroma to the nuts. Most people won't be able to tell the difference though. Wash the nuts and clean them as I describe in this post, then lay them out to dry asap. You'll be fine. I"m here if you have more questions too.
Alexandra
Thank you so much Alan! I so appreciate you and everything you are doing here!
Alan Bergo
You're welcome.
Joannie
Excellent info. This is my first black walnut season (newly retired). I used hot water and only washed the hulled nuts once, which brought up 2 questions. Where to dump the water? Do I basically have to identify a place in my yard where I don’t want anything to grow? Secondly, what is the consequence of less than pristinely cleaned nuts when using GGG (which I just ordered?) - just a messier job, or something worse. Thx!!
Alan Bergo
Hey Joannie, congrats on your first year. Yes, dump the liquid in a place you don't care about. That said, I've dumped it in my grass accidentally and never had a problem. There is no consequence to less clean nuts beyond a slightly more messier process, correct.
Joseph Archambault
Hi Alan, Enjoyed the article. My question is; I let the walnuts dry in the sun on a plastic slitted rack for better part of a sunny afternoon. Mostly dried. Now they are hanging in greenhouse in onion bags. Some may have still been a bit moist when I hung in the greenhouse. Did it matter some were still a bit moist? Cool (45 F degree nights) but dry im tje greenhouse . Thank You.
Alan Bergo
Hey Joseph. If you washed them after removing the hulls I would set a box fan a few feet away, pointed at them while they’re drying in the bag. Rotate them and move the nuts around regularly for even drying. If you didn’t wash them you might be able to get away without a fan but, since it’s a lot of work I think it’s better to be safe than sorry. You can’t over dry the nuts, but you can definitely under-dry them. I’m here if you have more questions.
Joseph Archambault
Thank You Alan, I did turn / rotate the onion bags in which the walnuts are in on the shelf in the greenhouse.
Since it started getting pretty cold at night here (R. I. ) I hung the onion bags in the cellar near the furnace. Will crack a few open in about 4 weeks. But I'll give them a good 6 weeks. Thank You for your response and help. Joe
Alan Bergo
Glad to help. I’m here if you have more questions down the road.
Steve
Some tips to make the process a little easier.
Removing the husks. Lay out the nuts on your driveway in a single layer. Put a full or half sheet of plywood down on the nuts. Stand on the plywood and 'surf' it around to make the nuts roll which strips off the husks. A few kids will make short work of this part and have fun doing it. Once the husks are free leaf rake works well to separate the nuts from the husks. A snow shovel works great for scoping up the free nuts for washing.
Washing. I use a 2 step method. First wash in a clean garbage or large tub. Be sure to fill the container with enough water to see if any nuts float. Toss out the floaters as they either didn't form a nut or spoiled. After a good rinse to get off the big stuff put the nuts in a laundry basket and clean with a power washer.
Once washed spread them back out on the driveway to let the sun do the initial dry. Rake the around a few times through the day to make sure all the water evaporates. Before evening scoop them up and cure as described above.
The husks and black water contain the chemical juglone which inhibits plant growth. Use this to your advantage and distribute this waste in areas where you want to control weeds. Don't put it in your compost pile or let the black water drain onto your lawn.
Carla Sullivan
Super helpful information! After years of talking about it & researching the process, I finally decided to attempt my own black walnut harvest this weekend. I removed the hulls gave them a hard spray & stir in the bucket, rinsed & repeated. I didn't feel like they were clean enough, so I let them soak in the bucket full of water in hopes of loosening up the remaining hull remnants. Now, reading this article, I think I may have ruined them?! Have I??? Before I put any more elbow grease into this batch, should I just throw out what I've started & try again (I have plentiful supply available)? Or can these be salvaged after soaking for 24 hours?
Alan Bergo
Hi Carla. 24 hours is not ideal. But, you may be able to salvage them if they are set out to dry as fast as possible. They could take twice as long to dry, ime.
Carla Sullivan
Thank you for the speedy response! I may keep this batch separate, as an experiment/learning experience, and start another round. We’ll see what happens & worst case scenario, I know better going forward. Attempting more self-sufficiency is hard work…Ha!
Jill Chambers
This is my second time harvesting black walnuts. First time was a complete success! So I did the same thing again this year. However, after drying on cookie sheets (all I had to store them on) in single layer for 5 to 7 days and they felt dry I put them in mesh bags. I was careful to turn the bags and give them a good mixing up every other day or so. They have been sitting that way for 2 weeks now and today when I went to turn them a few fell out of the bag and I noticed mold on them. I dumped them all out on the floor and went through them all and pulled out about a dozen with mold. Do you think the whole batch is bad or just those ones? Do I need to toss the whole batch? Is it possible I washed them too long? I did a 4 or 5 water change and used a wire wheel on a drill in the bucket to stir them and clean them. Thanks so much.
Alan Bergo
Hi Jill. The nuts weren’t dried long enough. Put them in a single layer on trays with fans blowing on them is what id do. Hopefully the smell didn’t penetrate them and you can salvage them. The taste will tell you.
Jess
Thank you so much for the instructions! I have an Excalibur dehydrator I’d like to use for this. Any guidance on temperature and time?
Alan Bergo
Lowest heat possible until cracker dry. A week might work. Crack them here and there to check on their progress.
Carolyn Kean
Great article. We have a very large, about 75 years old, black walnut tree. The tree is super loaded with nuts. Aside from gathering and processing them, what can you do with them. My son is disabled. Should he bury them or what?
Alan Bergo
I have some recipes here in my Black walnut recipes . You can also use them in the green stage, as I mention in my post Cooking with Green Walnuts They can also be used to make dye.
Dawn Lindsey
I thought I had butternuts but I now believe, judging from the pix, they may be black walnuts. I picked them directly from the tree, as I was leaving upstate NY for my home in Florida. The nutmeats are nice & white but they are very moist & have a gold/orange membrane running thru them, which can be removed pretty easily. Also the outer, tan membrane of the individual nutmeats can be easily "peeled" from the meat. I'm wondering if they should have matured more & if it is safe to eat them? I've cracked only a few & put them in a plastic baggie, but they are so moist I'm afraid they will mold. Any suggestions/comments?
Alan Bergo
Hi Dawn. Please read my how to in this post. The nuts need to be dried before they're ready to crack. The orange coloration isn't bad at all, we just don't know what causes it. Sam Thayer has mentioned it may have something to do with temperature, but I don't think anyone knows. No need to try and remove it from the nuts-I don't, and some trees I pick from have that.
Carol Borgic
We have several black walnut trees and we spend the winter cracking them and storing them, it seems no matter how hard I try I always end up with shells in with the walnut meat. Is there a way to detect this before I put them in cookies etc. it is very upsetting when someone is over, and I serve the dessert and they pull out a shell from their mouth.
Roger Merchberger
Carol,
There's a blog post on the Grandpa's Goody Getter website for a homemade nut tumbler that seems to work well for the individual that built it. Maybe this could be some inspiration for a solution for you.
https://www.grandpasgoodygetter.com/blogs/news/homemade-nut-tumbler-by-george
Hope this helps!
Alan Bergo
Thanks for sharing Roger.
Will Agen
Does leaving the outer shell on too long effect the meat of the nut and do you discard any nuts that float?
Alan Bergo
Discard any that float. I remove the outer husk, and yes it can affect the flavor, but it also wouldn't be the end of the world. Trying to crack nuts with dried hulls on them is messy though, and I definitely recommend hulling them as the majority of black walnut harvesters do.
Maya
Thank you so much for the detailed information! It is much appreciated. I actually foraged for green black walnuts because I am using the hull in a tincture and now I know how to get them out to eat them as well! Can’t wait to try them as I have never had them.
Alan Bergo
Thanks Maya. They have a very special flavor.
Stephanie
Wonderful read! So thorough and helpful! Thank you so much for taking the time to share your experience and advice! I can't wait to put my newfound knowledge to the test!
Alan Bergo
Thanks Stephanie.
Melissa
Alan,
I can't thank you enough for all of your helpful & funny (rancid nuts) information.
We are looking forward to harvesting here in Northern Virginia in the next week or two. It looks like a bumper crop everywhere here this year!
I'll keep you posted if anything unexpected and/or successful procedures happen.
Thanks again!
Melissa
Alan Bergo
Have a good season.
Bill
Noticed your jam recipe doesn't cut into the green walnuts. Any ideas or tricks on how to tell if the green unripe walnuts are good to use, before cutting open?
Alan Bergo
You don't want to cut into the walnuts for the jam because it could dry them out, and it would ruin the look of the finished, candied nuts. If you read the recipe, you'll notice that you peel and pierce the nuts before soaking, if there is developed shell in your nuts, you'll notice it either while peeling, piercing, or both. Obviously, you can take one off the tree and just cut it in half before harvesting a bag full, which is what I usually do.
Susan Hanback
I have the nuts in box lids in the outer shell still, they are not green. My mother believes they still need to stay in this messy outside shell for awhile before I put my gloves on and remove it. Do you agree. I'd just liike to get that done in my warm backyard before cold weather hits. Your thoughts. Thanks.
Alan Bergo
No I don’t agree. I’d remove them from the hull.
Mary
Thank you for the excellent info …your suggestion about using clipper tool is a game changer. I’ve harvested 4 large bags(!!!) from our tree in the last week. Will be using black walnuts in cookies / cake, assuming I do this right. Continuing a tradition of my mom and her parents in western NC.
Alan Bergo
Thanks Mary. The clippers definitely made a huge difference for me.