Black Walnuts...

[GaryM]

I have many black walnuts, in their husks, on the ground and in the trees.

What's the best way to remove the husks? I've heard both pro and con regarding driving over them to remove the husks. I'm guessing that this won't crack the shells themselves?

Someone mentioned clamping a knife in a vice and using that to split and remove the husks. Sounds kind of dangerous to me. Maybe with kevlar gloves? [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

I've also heard that the removed husks shouldn't be composted as they contain a somewhat toxic substance. And I do know that they can stain skin quite badly.

Any advice is appreciated. A friend already has a FEL bucket full ready to be worked on.

[Gatorboy]

Put the walnuts in a bag and drive over them once or twice. I've done this and had good luck. It's then fairly easy to get the nut from out of the husk. One word of advice -- wear gloves, unless you like yellow fingers.

[GaryM]

I thought maybe someone had a PTO driven husker! [img]/forums/images/icons/ooo.gif[/img]

Maybe I can smack them with the bottom of the FEL.

[Chuck52]

Gary,

The wife and I did the wine trail this past weekend, driving 94 from Jeff City to Hermann and then 100 to Washington and then 94 again to past Augusta. Somewhere along that route, we passed a small community where there was a huller set up. I think it was most likely somewhere between Jeff City and the turn to go to Hermann. Maybe you should pack up your walnuts and go for a combo wine and nut trip!

Last time I hulled my own small batch of walnuts, I just waited until the husks were black, donned a pair of leather gloves, and squeezed the nuts out by hand. Then I rinsed themk and set them out to dry in the sun. I was only dealing with about a five gallon bucket of nuts. If I do that again, I'll wear some latex gloves under the leather ones, as I came out with an interesting tan of the hands. I also shelled those by hand by cracking them with a hammer and then picking the nutmeats out while watching the idiot box in the evenings. I got a couple of cups of nutmeats, and that was enough for some fudge and cookies and such. It is really hard to keep small pieces of shell out of the final product, and those can be painful to bite.

Chuck

[GaryM]

Chuck,

I'm about 5 miles up Hiway "U" in Warren County. It's about 5 miles West of the "U"/"47" intersection. About 14 miles East of the "94"/"19" intersection.

Stop by and I'll give you more nuts!

[Chuck52]

Gary,

Thanks for the offer, but this must have been a bumper year for walnuts. A friend has so many walnut trees in his woods he's afraid to walk back there.....may get a concussion.

Chuck

BTW, I should post a picture. I, too, am a white-haired guy with a beard. I've thought about just stealing your pic to use!

[GaryM]

Actually that's not me. That picture came with the wallet! [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

Naw, it's me. But I'm a lot bigger than the piture.

[Pat]

Hulling black wallnuts:

Hang them up in the dry where squirrels etc can't get them. Use a burlap bag for air circullation. You want them to dry a bit and let the nutmeat seperate from the shells at least a little. They will be ready in time for the holidays. Put the wallnuts into a cement mixer with some just smaller than your fist sized stones and a few shovels full of pea gravel or small gravel. Don't add water just run until the hulls are abraded or knocked away. The finer gravel helps clean the grooves in the shells.

When separated, screen through a piece of hardware cloth type stuff or fencing material that will pass the debris but not the nuts.

Now you need a good cracker like a butternut or whatever.

Running over them with a car is for C.L.O.D. members. (see back issues of "Mad" magazine for definition of C.L.O.D.) Running over them with a gas lawn mower is also not the cleverest appraoch.

There are usually nut mills in areas where there are commercial quantities of nuts. Around here pecans are THE nut. There are about 10 pecan cracking operations within 25 miles of me. I have neighbors wo do tons of nuts almost every year.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]