Black Walnuts

   / Black Walnuts #1  

Chuck52

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Joined
Aug 13, 2001
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Location
Mid-Missouri
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Kubota L210
Got too much time on your hands? Need something to do while you watch the idiot box? Like the old time flavor of fudge with black walnuts? This is your year!

This was apparently a banner year for black walnuts. The one skinny walnut tree left on my property after the power company cut down the other one (and cut it into firewood-sized pieces rather than leaving me at least a potentially useful log) busted it's gut making nuts. I picked up only about 100, though I could have gathered at least twice that. Now, I know how much of a pain shelling black walnuts can be, but the wife said she'd make some fudge with them if I'd do the job. My mommy used to make fudge with black walnuts when I was a kid. My brothers and I would break the nuts and try to separate the precious meat from the shell. I think we usually just whacked the nuts and collected the easy parts that accidentally fell out. This time around I have discovered why all the nut bowls I've had over the years have those nut picks included with them. The nut cracker is useless for walnuts, but the picks turn out to be just the thing for popping as much meat as possible from the black walnut shells. In fact, I think those picks must have been intended only for black walnuts....what other kind of nut would they be useful for? So far this evening I've collected about a cup of nut meat. This would make a great diet! I know I've expended many times the caloric content of the nut meat I've collected! Plus, the broken shells make an excellent addition to your home security plan. You scatter them on the ground around your house to discourage barefoot burglars!

Chuck
 
   / Black Walnuts #2  
Good one Chuck.

Been there.......
 
   / Black Walnuts #3  
Chuck I'm glad they are working for you. We get so many the squirrels won't even touch them. We leave the ones in the woods to do their own thing but the ones that drop the nuts on the turf are immediately turned into firewood.
 
   / Black Walnuts #4  
Chuck, I've seen times when those little picks came in quite handy for pecans, too. Of course, if pecans are cracked right, you don't the pick very often. And I never learned any good way to crack black walnuts. I like'em but they're just about more trouble than they're worth. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif
 
   / Black Walnuts #5  
You could always use the method that my grandfather used, but assembling the materials might be difficult.

He would fill a wooden trough with the walnuts, then drive his Ford Model-T (one with metal rims) back and forth to crush the nuts. My mom and her sister then had to pick out all the meats.
 
   / Black Walnuts
  • Thread Starter
#6  
I'm having fun cracking them with my little finishing hammer on a chunk of metal I scrounged from the scrap heap. Before I got that chunk of metal, I proved to myself that the nuts were harder than the surface of my work bench. I was experimenting with smacking them on the slightly pointy end, but that didn't seem to work very well. Seems to work best to whack them right on the seam, rotate 90 degrees, and whack them again to break the halves up some. That is, assuming part or all of it hasn't sprung across the basement, or I haven't whacked my finger instead. If both halves are cracked, the meat can be dug out with reasonable ease. I've heard of driving over the nuts to get rid of the green husks, but you'd have to put these nuts on concrete before driving over them or all you'd do is plant 'em.

Bird,

I am a professional pecan sheller and would never consider stooping to the use of a pick for the king of all nuts. This is the first year I ever bought pre-cracked pecans, and I am still not over the shame of it. My technique is to squeeze two pecans together in my hand, carefully controlling the pressure so that the shell is just cracked enough to allow removal of perfect halves, and even the occassional complete nut. Unfortunately, this doesn't work well with Missouri pecans, which are about the size of hazelnuts. They do taste pretty good, and are supposed to have a higher oil content than the larger southern pecans, but they just kinda get lost in my fist when I try to break them like I did the ones back home in Tennessee.

I agree that black walnuts are probably more trouble to crack than they are worth, if you only consider the amount of meat against the work involved. They sure do taste good though, and I ended up with about two cups of kernals from about half my stash. That's enough for more fudge than I'll be able to eat anyway.

Chuck
 
   / Black Walnuts #7  
Here is where my black walnuts go.

Far too many to pick up. Plus that might take time away from the tractor. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Have a good one!
 

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   / Black Walnuts #8  
</font><font color="blue" class="small">( I am a professional pecan sheller )</font>

/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gifChuck, there was a time when I used to crack a 5 gallon bucket full of pecans at a time in the garage or shop building, then take them in the house where my wife and I would shell them out to put in the freezer, but the last few years of living down in the country, the place I sold some pecans to also had the machinery to crack and shell them; great for folks as lazy as I am. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif And I, too, have cracked and shelled a lot of pecans in my life by sqeezing two together in my hand, but that sure is slow and hard to do with the little native pecans. It's too bad that the little native pecans are the best flavor, but also the most work to crack and shell.
 
   / Black Walnuts #9  
A pick? I thought this was sight was for real Men!

Whatever happend to using a vise and pliers in the Man Cave?
Shamefull just shamefull.
 
   / Black Walnuts
  • Thread Starter
#10  
Fightin' Words! Nut picks at ten paces! /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Chuck
 
 
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