Black Walnut Processing - 2021 Edition 

About 25 years ago my dad came home with a gallon of walnuts gathered from the neighbors. He put them in a paper grocery bag in the garage. About a week later we mowed our 1/3 acre back yard and when we came back the squirrels had robbed us blind. In that next Spring 6 walnut trees sprouted in our yard in the weirdest spots. 3 made it through that next Winter. They are now between 8 and 10" around and at least 25' tall. Dad trimmed them beautifully they have great canopies, long straight trunks and they're dropping walnuts all over the place. Now the neighborhood has a bunch of big fat happy grey squirrels with plenty to eat. And I've noticed walnut trees have popped up all over the within a quarter mile of our house. It's going to be a neighborhood of walnuts, nothing can stop it now.

If you know any natural dyers, they'd LOVE some of that husk; it makes a gorgeous deep warm brown dye :)

This video is such a blessing! I have a black walnut tree in my mom's backyard and I had no idea how to process them. Thank you!

I watched another video of a guy in Ontario, Canada who soaks the walnuts in their husks for about a week or two, first. This method apparently softens the husks very well. Then he uses a small cement mixer, which can be bought from Lowe's, throws a couple large granite rocks that have nice sharp edges on them, in with the husked walnuts, and turns the mixer on for about a half hour per 10 gallons of nuts. This is my first year harvesting Black Walnuts and Hickory Nuts so I've been on a RU-vid Binge watching everyone's methods. Some are less labor intensive than others but I also learn something different from each persons method. Thanks for the video.

I used a small electric cement mixer. You tumble the green hulls for a bit, they peel off, no water. Then tumble the dry shells with some sharp gravel and dry sand, and they polish enough to keep inside in a clean dry milk crate to "air out". . . .crack them on the kitchen counter with a metal nutcracker. walnut shells are good for tumble polishing ammo brass for reloading.. . . I once tried to make my own walnut stain. . .it sort of worked. . . .

There are SOO many black walnuts and hickory nuts this year in Eastern PA as well. I was just watching an older video of yours showing the same process the other day. Definitely going to try this with a stick and see how it turns out. Thanks! Hope all is well!

I'm currently in Black Walnut processing mode. Currently have 2600 hanging and curing in mesh bags with about another 3500 to hull, clean and place into mesh bags. I should get close to 60lbs of shelled edible walnuts this from this year's harvest. It is free superfood just laying on the ground.

I took inspiration from your past videos about this and processed about 20# of pecans from a tree i found on my university's campus. I was going to make some crates like you had done, but then the thought struck to use some old bird netting material i had kept. gathered the nuts up, and tied them closed. Now i have 3 nut bags hanging up drying and i'll give them a jiggle every so often

This is really a great system. Thank you for showing each step and explaining it so clearly.

Awesome to see more of Juan!

My squirrels planted black walnuts in my yard so I’m letting them grow for future nuts. I can’t wait!

2021 is definitely a good year. My son and I just picked up 108 five gallon buckets of walnuts in their husks from his yard here in West Virginia. We are planning to process only about 8 or 10 five gallon buckets, but they all needed picked up. I think the squirrels are in for a good winter.

A friend placed black walnuts in a metal cage and pressure washed the hulls right off!! Super clean nuts ready to dry out and crack!!

Thank you for clarifying about the composting. I had watched another video that mentioned the toxin not being good for other plants, so I was worried when I saw a previous video mentioning the composting without clarifying the issue. We just moved to PA, and found out we have a big black walnut tree on our property. Feel very lucky, and looking forward to harvesting for the first time in a couple of months.

Tons of nuts in southeast Michigan too. I have more than I know what to do with! Thanks for the useful information!💕🌰

Great video.... I use my mortar mixer on half speed and just let it go for 10-15 min. I then dump and rinse the nuts of hull slop and throw them in again with clean water and let them spin for another 15 min. Rinse and your done. You can process so many with this method. I find the mortar mixer is far superior to anything. Thx

Do you have chickens? Just watched someone else who gives the husks (that often has larvae in it) to their chickens and they love it. The remains get worked into the bedding/compost. Thank you for your video!

I hope that you do a follow up and show us how you eat them and how tasty they are. Very curious. Maybe a clean and cook with Sacha?

Here in wet Oregon. In a hurry? Husks still firm yet? I use the cap that fits over a chain link fence post. It has a round loop that holds the pipe top rail In place. Just push the green nut through the loop. The husk cracks away from the nut and the nut comes thru the loop dehulled. I make a handle for this tool or use something close to the correct diameter and duck tape it on. If husks are gooey I use a large tote and cover the whole mess with water then pressure wash and all the gunk overflows leaving the nuts very clean.

Cool video. Im in MN and noticed a ton of walnuts this year as well.

We used to have "snowball fights" with those...yeah ouch.🤣 I just put them under the tree for squirrels.

Any tips for processing butternuts? I'm totally new to them- thanks

I found it was easy for me to use a wooden board or hard surface Id just smash/roll each husk under my boot and the shell would pop right out. So I had a system of a pile of shells off to my left, a pile of shells to be hulled to my right and across the board on the ground I'd kick the separated hulls. Then after stepping on and separating each shell I'd then put the shells into a bucket of clean water with a paint mixer to clean and then I'd run that mixture into a plastic planting pot (or milk crate) which would hold all the shells but let all the black mucky water drain through the bottom drain holes, I'd do a couple rinses like that and they were good to dry from there. I found I didn't have to handle the black staining tary hulls and my clothes easily stayed clean it was a clean process since the bottom of my boot handles all the hull matter worked for me. I got least 7 5-gallon buckets full of cleaned shells, this is the first time I've processed black walnut so I'm excited to supplement the diet with free healthy wild forage

My mom used to lay the black walnuts out on the area she parked the car. She used to drive over the nuts and in a few weeks she would have us outside picking the nuts up and that was it. Fall is a time the ozarks gets lots of rain and the squirrels would always get a few. They also planted several trees in our yard.😊 to this day walnuts are my favorite nut.

The black walnut does well in the southeast, also!

big nut and persimmon year here too! QUESTION! will either the nuts or persimmon seeds germinate if stored cool and dry then soaked later and stratified?

Getting ready for 2022 walnut harvest just finished my hazelnut harvest of around 100 pounds of wild hazelnuts hope you have a great season also

I've been collection black walnuts, pignut hickory, beech nuts and acorns lately. Last year the black walnuts around me didn't produce enough nuts for me to even bother collecting, but this year they're really producing.

I wonder if one of those little cement tumblers would be good to agitating them, if you or a neighbor happened to have one.

Collecting black walnuts around my neighborhood. Collected a grocery bag of butternuts too. Been slowly processing them (stepping on them to get the husks off), but I think I'll try the water/ paint mixer method, only on a smaller scale. Tried to agitate with my hand, but I managed to mangle my fingers (butternuts are razor blade sharp!). Thanks for the info!

My black raspberries were being decimated by orange rust so i decided to experiment with black raspberry leaves: mulching the berries with them since they have natural antifungal activity. It was hardly effective but the black raspberryb is surprisingly resistant to juglone and had huge beautiful fruit. I was shocked the birds didnt pillage them as normal untill i ate some... they were absolutly horrible: tasting like juglone. If you had a problem with birds thievin your berries, it seems this could be a great deterrent, to strategically juglone-ificate some berries so the local birds think your berries suck and wont mess with them. Much like painting rocks red and placing them in your strawberry patch.( James Prigioni has a good video)

Hey guys, thank you very much. A really good idea. I'll try it this year 😉 thanks again 💪

Delightful :) thank you for sharing your process with us.

Very well done. Any tricks you do on cracking these bad mamma jammas?

Have you tried a cement mixer? you can add a few small stones to help the process.

Great ideas, keep up the good work

Can you please show us what you do cooking or how you like to use the black walnuts thanks

Pressure washer works very well

Brilliant! I've been attempting to process my walnuts by hand but it takes forever. Time to bust out the hose and milk crate.

Damn, 2022 and mine in Maryland started dropping in early September. That is extremely early compared to past years.

I just stomp on the nut before i pick it up and it easily separates from the husk. This all seems unnecessary to me. Compare an immaculately cleaned nut to one of this simple method and see if it doesnt taste better and store as long or longer. How long do you let yours cure before eating?

I only know of 4 walnut trees near me its not a very Australian thing to have everywhere but most years the cockatoos and corellas get to them when they are still small and green and nobody gets any nuts

Do you guys have a process for extracting Black Walnut Oil

I collected what I thought was black walnut but instead of everything being stained black, everything was stained more of a deep yellowish orange. Any idea what kind of walnuts I have? Are they still edible or even good?

These are great for dying fabric!

Do you have a process for shelling them in bulk once you've removed the husks and cured them?

I welcome the juglone from the big pile left of processed hulls, I just use them as mulch under my paw paws they don't mind it

I grab them green and just roll them under my boot and the husk falls right off the black walnuts. My butternuts I have to do a lot more work and agitation with, but the black walnut husks just split into 2 very cleanly and easily.

i have a a feeling you will sell them all

A trampoline in the sun is also great for drying. Will you be sharing your cracking technique? Here in Sweden black walnuts are hard as hell to crack.

By chance are you the author of the video “we will witness what Nephi saw in vision” videos? Your voice is uncannily similar. Great vids!

We have so many black walnut trees here is Eastern Ontario. I've never seen them processed before. I normally just leave them for the squirrels.

We have a "local" black walnut tree but it's kind of sad. We had a late frost this year so its flowers burned and we didn't get any nuts this year. I was hoping to plant some of them and start a couple of trees. I think it's slightly unusual around here, considering we're in far northern Minnesota, and if it survived up here, maybe its offspring will also survive and prosper.

Might this be a Mast year? Are the other nut trees near you having extra abundant crops?

I have quite a lot of black walnut seeds that I processed cured a couple years ago. I was wondering how long the nuts may remain viable for germination and how long the nuts keep in general if stored in a dryish space?

I have almost a dozen black walnut and about 6 hickory trees on my property. I love the hickory nut but would like to start working with the walnut. It seems like so much work, though! 😭

The black walnuts I've collected always taste quite bitter- is it an acquired taste or do you have some curing tips that would help with the flavor?

I gave you guys a shout out on my latest video. Thank you for bringing to my attention the paddle mixing method. I believe you'll like my modification with a 2nd can used as a strainer. Thank you.

Do you know how old Black Walnut trees have to be before producing nuts? Also, are the nuts from the first years of production as good as any other year? I realized I have two trees at my house but didn't notice nuts on the ground previously. I harvested some of them but when I cracked them open the nut meat was kind of soft and smelled a little rancid. Both of the trees are less than 1 foot in diameter. Thanks.

Do you use the fan technique after the sun dry? What about the storage after they dry?

How long do you do the direct drying before the cool dry storage?

Do you use the super thick water to dye fabrics?

How do you add lots and lots of carbon? Could I also compost black walnut wood/leaves?

We don't really have any nuts here in Finland (except the occasional hazelnut) but I'm going to change that for my property...

My drill burned up doing this . What kind of drill are you using,?

i wish i saw this a week ago

This is great, thanks for sharing! On a much smaller scale, I’ve been collecting (ripe?) but from the side of the road after the husks have mostly softened and broken off. I then pick the husks off as I collect them. I’m certainly not getting nearly as many nuts this way, as small mammals and bugs are getting to them first- I don’t take any nuts that have visible insect damage. Any downsides that you can see to this method? I’m sure your method results in a many more nuts but I don’t have the time this year for that level of processing. Also, the black walnuts in your area are HUGE, the ones around here are about 1-1/2” max.

Now you’re going to have to do a video on how to extract the nut from the shell. Lol that’s the time consuming part.

Power washer good idea

Would like to see you talk about saving some of the walnuts for tree production. Good video though seems quite labor extensive and water excessive but some times there's know other way.

Nice vid, lots of black walnuts this year, question,... as with Hickory nuts do you float test black walnuts?

how many seed u collect a year ?

Passing along a link to their video from a couple years ago explaining how they crack the nuts: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-cTgvgqFfEvA.html. I'm sure I'm not the only one who was curious!

20 gallons from 2 trees so far. Got another tree that just hasn't let go yet.

I used to eat those things like crazy when I was a kid up north. It was the only nut tree we had that I knew about anyway. I'd end up with those black stains everywhere. I lost my taste for them of late though. I'm not sure if it was a bad batch or what, but they had the strongest taste. It was too much. The price was crazy to boot. What is the flavor of the Chinese walnut like?

Envious! If we have these trees in Scotland then they're just specimen trees.

Jordan Peterson farming deez nutz

leave them for the critters in the forest. Stop stealing from them. Horrible

Prevedite na srpski .

Hell no! You make it too messy. My method is better. Only when it's black, you're too late. You smash the greens on a hard surface, like rock or concrete. Then you roll it with your boots to remove the green husk.

thats true 2021 our walnut tree produced maybe thousands of walnuts.

When I moved to NC I met some very cool older gentlemen who gave me a tour of the county they had grown up in. They would see someone with a seal it tree in their yard, knock on the door and ask if they could harvest their walnuts from their lawns. It’s awesome they fill grocery bags with them and bring them home to process. Hundred of lbs of Walnuts that would have otherwise gone to waste. I actually barter some chicken eggs with one of these men weekly he gives me beans and tomatoes through summer and broccoli and collard greens in late fall.

Juglone breaks down in the soil relatively quickly. If you cut down a tree in the spring, you can plant where it stood by autumn.

Here in NE Ohio I have tennis ball sized walnuts this year, I've never had them this big.

the green walnut husk is the good stuff for anti parasitics

Put on your heaviest boots and take the nuts out to the curb. Stand on them and roll them under your feet. The shucks come right off if they are not too green. Throw the nuts in one bucket and the shucks in another. I use a dust pan to scoop up the shucks. You can wash the shells, but you don't have to. It is really messy using water and what you get off is mostly color and a little fiber that will just dry up on its own and fall off as you crack them. I let them air dry and store for at least three months before I eat them. You have developed the messiest possible method guaranteed to ruin all of our clothes and stain your hands for weeks. Enjoy.

Acorns can be processed and eaten processed as flour as well.

i think you may be getting rid of the best bit, the freeze dried green walnut husk is gold anti parasitic

Good process! I have Many trees my Dad planted 35-40 years ago. We have about 300 yards of gravelly ground along our creek. They grow Great here. Have been harvesting them by the "gator" load. Will use yer techniques to streamline our process. Thanks!

One ton of nuts. Wow! I'm sure you'll make it. A lot of work but also a lot of nutricion.

I have a medium sized plastic drum that I have secured to couple a of 2x4's with a split removable top with a hole in the center of the top. I have a round wooden plate screwed to the bottom with a 1/2 inch hole drilled in the center and 3 or 4 1"x1" slats attached vertically to the inside. I place the mixer in the drum with the tip of mixer in the hole of the wooden plate to keep the mixer centered, pour in the walnuts and start agitating, reversing the drill ever so often. Remove the husk from the drum, replace the walnuts with some water and clean the walnuts by agitating.

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Need woodchips! Checking the roads today FOR WALNUTS! TY

Hi! Very cool collecting and drying. But, how do you crack the nuts? Do you have a good machine? Many thanks!!

try boiling and filtering that black water and using it as a brown dye! might work for you might not

we let them dry on dry surface in the fresh air ... once they dry gently beat them with a stick or roll a heavy pole on it peals right off

not rot so much...just break down...a bit...TV

Boy, those are nice walnuts! I have ben collecting and have around 20 gallons of in shell nuts, but, if they were as large as those I'd probably have 10 gallon more! I don't have walnuts on our property, so would have interest in possibly purchasing a few trees from you, if you are selling them. ;-)

Some of those look like white walnuts also known as butternut

Great tips, thanks!