ditched the acorns

What happened with the end of that project. I got to the step of leaching the tannins out. Had all the ground acorns 

in three containers of water in the fridge. Poured off, stirred up and poured off again, and refreshed with new water every day. For over two weeks it felt like (I lost track). Just never seemed to get clear. Pictures of one container, several days apart each image:

Really dark with tannins at the beginning

Started to get lighter after just a few days

but then seemed to go on forever never getting clearer than this:

I finally stopped. I think it just went on too long- the ground acorns seemed to be spoiling in the fridge. Had that same unpleasant, slightly-pink greyish color as many of the nutmeats I'd tossed out when shelling them, because I thought they were bad.

So either all those acorns I saved in the freezer went bad, or they went bad from taking so long to leach the tannins out, or I'd thrown away masses of them at the beginning, that I didn't need to. I just don't know which it is.

Either way, I did taste a tiny bit of the acorn 'granola' (that's what it looked like) and it was very bland. Not soured or rancid, but not nutty and sweet either. 

So I never cooked with them at all. I think next time I collect acorn mast to keep the deer from hanging out in my yard all winter, I'll just throw them in the woods.

last acorns

I finally cracked the last gathered white oak acorns a few days ago.

They were all bad. Had been in a single layer in a basket that I agitated quite often, I didn't see any visible mold on the outsides, but once opened, those not insect infested or rotted to a powder, had this discoloration- starting to spoil.

Threw them all out. 

I'm still gathering a whole lot of pin oak acorns out of the yard, every few days, to dispose of on walks in the woods . . . where I think the animals have been eating them, because the last spot I dumped acorns, I found a pile of deer droppings this time. 

Well at least they were discovered by the wildlife, outside of my yard.

end of acorns, first step

Well, almost. There's a few left in the last basket. I spent a few hours going through all the acorns. Because I'd forgotten to sift them around for a day (or maybe two), and also perhaps the baskets didn't have an open enough weave on the bottom, and I found that a lot of them were suddenly going moldy. There was also film of mold growing on the bottom of the baskets, I threw one out and scoured the other with bleach and set it outside on the porch to dry, ick. 

So while the other day, I felt like more than half the acorns were good, which was pleasing, this time most of them were bad, which was discouraging and gross. I threw a lot out without even bothering to open them, due to the mold. And then I drained the bowl of opened good acorns but got distracted with another task out of the room for a moment, forgot to come back to it, and they discolored very quickly. Looked bad enough I threw those out too. This was halfway thru sorting all the acorns though, so it wasn't a total loss. 

I ended up with a full bucket of bad acorns, full bucket of shells again, paper bag full of solid but with-a-worm-hole nuts to discard in the woods, and just over half a quart bag of good, clean ones to go in the freezer. Very tired of it. There's just a few handfuls left that weren't ready to split yet. I shake the basket when I walk past through the room, to keep 'em aerated. (Though only one layer now, so they probably don't need it).

The bad acorns and moldy ones this time around disgusted me so much, I felt compelled to scour my kitchen sink and other things just to feel clean again.

acorns day 4

of the shelling stage, still. Heaped a plate again with ones that were starting to split open. Learned that the quick spoilage happens from the nutmeat getting exposed to air, so if you drop them immediately in water, they don't start to discolor. So I tried that.

It definitely made the job go quicker- instead of making continual trips across the room to freezer, I just plop them all in the bowl of water, rinse and pat dry and freeze at the end. Above pic, all the acorns that split entirely in half while I was shelling, so I finished them right away. Set aside the ones that remained intact with their skins on to do after.

While I was splitting these, to check for bad spots, the ones in the bowl soaked out enough tannins to color it all yellow.

My bowl for shells filled for the third time since starting all this, so I empty in the yard under shrubs as mulch.

And the bowl (slightly smaller) of bad acorn discards, filled for the fourth time, prompting a walk through the woods . . . 

Almost filled a quart bag entire, from this shelling alone.

more acorns

Yesterday I planted out the sweetspire, on the larger slope. And trimmed berries off the nandina. Mixed firepit ash into the vermicompost and spread on both front and back lawns (most of it on the front, as I think the back lawn gets nutrients that wash downslope out of the garden beds). 

Sorted this pile of acorns out of the baskets, that were starting to split

and got this much good stuff out of them

Today even more looked ready- hard to tell in the photo, but the plate was heaped a lot higher.

I didn't take a photo of the ones that had exposed nutmeats, putting them directly into the freezer once I had half a dozen open- but here's all the ones that got shelled and still had skins on- left those for the end, as they wouldn't start to go bad as quickly.

It still felt like more than half were rotten inside or eaten by the grubs (they're not really acorn worms, though I've been calling them that. They're the grubs of the acorn weevil. Acorn worm is a different species entirely that lives in the ocean, named after the shape of its head I think). 

But felt satisfying that after splitting all those in the last picture, and putting the good ones in the freezer, to find I've now filled a quart bag completely.

And I'm down to two baskets of acorns, to continue shelling and splitting as they dry out.

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 . . .

acorns

Bumper crop in the yard- it must be a mast year. I noticed there's tons of big fat white oak acorns falling, I can actually hear them thump onto the ground if I'm outside. Don't know if I never noticed them before, or if this year the tree really is producing more than usual. And it's smaller and scrawnier than the big straight pin oak. Perhaps because the leaf mulch pile was near base of the white oak this past season, it had more nutrients to put into growing nuts? well, I decided to collect them 

Mainly because I don't want to encourage the deer and squirrels into my yard anymore than they already are. Plus the tannins inhibit growth of the lawn and other plants under the trees. I am picking up all the broken ones, empty shells and separated acorn caps too, because they roll and crunch under my feet the same way, making me stoop and reach for a nut that isn't there. Easiest way to find them (even though I cut the grass down to an inch, they're still fairly hidden) is by walking back and forth gently scuffing my feet on the ground. Or sit and rake my fingers through the grass in a wide circle around me. (I must look like a fool to the neighbors). Here's what I got on the first day (a lot with a rake, after raking up the leaves)

After cleaning them up- sorting out the bad ones, and putting the small ones from the pin oak in a separate container

discards-

After a day of going through them and reading up, I decided to just toss all the pin acorns. Most of them seem to have worm holes, and they're smaller so maybe not worth all the prep work of prepping to eat, and they're supposedly more bitter. I fill my pockets with them for a walk and scatter in the woods- the deer and squirrels can eat them there.

The worms. I was right about more of them being in the pin acorns. Since I removed those, I find far fewer grubs squirming across the floor.

And then what? Well, I'm curious to try and eat them, leached and cooked into something of course. It is a lot of steps, but not as much actual physical hard work as cracking and extracting the hickory nuts was. I wait for the shells to start cracking when they dry, and open 'em up by hand. Then put in the freezer until I have enough to grind, this is just the first part of the process. So far, not encouraging. About half of the ones I've opened, are partly rotted or moldy inside. (These few were good)

So it might take a lot of collecting to get enough to actually use. All this was actually earlier in the week. Since then I've gone out to pick up acorns in the yard for just an hour once every day or so- hoping if I get them right after falling they won't have absorbed as much moisture from the ground? Collected on day two from my yard 

and these from the pin oak

Day three collected- still a good amount- I'm guessing they'll keep coming down for weeks.

But if it turns out that over half are bad (see the three with worm holes upper left of pic) and I don't get much acorn meal to use, 

next year I'll just pick them up to relocate in the woods for the wildlife.

acorns

I'm still occasionally finding a pile of deer droppings in the back yard. The hanging soap seems to be working? at least, my chard and beets quit getting eaten, and the forsythia doesn't seem to have any new damage. I'm pretty sure the deer are attracted to the acorns- we have quite a few oak trees and they are producing a bumper crop of mast this year. I gathered up the acorns- raking hard and then sifting through the grass with my fingers in patches. Sorted them- wormy and obviously rotten ones and loose caps went into the compost. I also tossed ones that were sprouting. Toyed with the idea of leeching out tannins and using the good acorns- but I don't know what kind I have. If they are good for eating as nuts, grinding into flour, or pressing for oil- apparently there's a significant difference. Plus it's a bit of work and I remember how un-rewarding the harvest of hickory nuts seemed after a while...

So I ended up just carrying the acorns on a walk into the woods behind our neighborhood and leaving them there for the deer and squirrels. I figure if they're not on the ground in my yard, maybe the deer will quit coming. I'll have to gather more- they're still falling down.

I found out later, that the sprouted ones are actually edible, sometimes even sweeter. So although squirrels and deer might avoid the sprouted acorns and only go for new ones, I could have saved those for myself, if I wanted to clean and process them for use. Maybe another year...

cracking hickory nuts for pie

I thought to post this because I read so many tutorials and watched online videos showing different techniques for cracking the nuts open. And what other people said didn't quite work for me. Supposedly there is a very particular spot and if you hit just it right, the nut will fall apart releasing its treasure. I tried many many many times and never could get that spot. So I found a different way but it takes more steps. It was really frustrating until I did one thing: froze them. Put a bag of nuts in the freezer overnight, let them sit out again to room temperature. After that they broke open a lot easier, and the nuts were loosened, not fitting so tightly within the shell. There are so many crevices and contortions in there it's hard to get them extracted otherwise. I used: a hammer, a pick (this one isn't meant to be a nut pick it's really a little skewer) and a pair of needle-nose pliers (to break up shell interiors sometimes- smaller would have been better).

First I hit the nut on a terminal end- stood it on the point or the base, it didn't matter. Not a hard bash, but several firm taps until it gives at the seam. Don't want to crush the nutmeat inside. Opens easy enough into halves like this

sometimes it looks like hearts

Then hold the half sideways and hit it again in the center

if lucky, the half will crack into four pieces.

Sometimes a bit more cracking is needed to get the good stuff out. Or resorting to prying with the pick, but that's really tedious. Lots of times I gave up and tossed the shell piece in the bowl without getting the last little thin bits out.

It can seem a very small result to get from all that.

Cracking them was really a chore. I've only done a third of the total. Way more got discarded for having rotten insides than I expected. Probably a fourth or fifth of what I thought were good nuts, after sorting out the floaters and worm-holes. Maybe if we'd collected the nuts earlier in the season and I hadn't picked up so many that sat on the ground for a month or two... I'm saving the shells, as it's possible to make syrup too.

The nutmeats.

It's very possible I may never do this again... but I told the kids I'd make a hickory nut pie and my youngest is especially pleased with the idea because she is the one who noticed the hickory tree and started picking up nuts in the first place!

So I did it. I made a little pie. I looked at a lot of recipes, they're mostly the same, I kind of combined several. I mainly looked at this one, but used brown sugar cut with flour, and added crushed graham crackers in with the nuts, and layered the nuts on the bottom pouring the melted butter and karo syrup and stuff over. But first of all, roasted the nuts:

Here's a pic just before baking:

A taste test before serving it to more people, as it were.

It was pretty good. Definitely can taste the hickory flavor. Not as sweet as a pecan pie, but I liked that. (It's easy enough to use more sugar, or serve it with cream...)