acorn processing

There's definitely fewer to pick up now. Either the tree is almost done dropping them, or the squirrels have wised up to the competition and are getting out there ahead of me each morning. Collected from the yard day before yesterday:

and today. (Still plenty of pin oak acorns, which I toss out in the woods).

I got a bunch of baskets to have good airflow and contain them for drying out- nobody likes the sound of me sifting through them on the wooden floor. But it's nice to run my hands through them in the baskets- looking for worm holes, pinching off sprouts, feeling for loosening shells as they dry.

Today going through the baskets I pulled out a bunch that were starting to split.

Watched a youtube video called "Acorns and Eat 'Em". By a lady who said she was considered the expert on processing and using acorns. Funny to me that she said "you gotta whack 'em" cracking hers open by hitting with a stone. Mine, I can just roll and press in my hand and the shell starts to separate.

I've read that you don't have to remove the skins, as these are lighterweight than the nutmeats, and will float off after grinding, when you soak them. But I pulled most of them at least halfway off, to check for bad spots. Quite a few had rot couldn't see unless I at least split them in half. Here's all the nutmeats I got:

And all the bad ones. This includes discarded acorns with wormholes, or rot that I could see before opened the shell. Only two were green. Seems like more than half are gonna be bad. Is it worth the effort then, I don't quite know yet . . .