With a few thousand black walnuts harvested in my backyard, cleaned and dried, the task ahead is just too much.

Black walnuts are extraordinarily tough, and after shattered/crushed, the intrincate compartments still prove excessive work/time to extract the edible fragments. Some more hammering and mixed pieces are piling up. How to separate the goodies?

 

Dumped in water, both shell and 'meat' pieces sink.

How does the industry does it ? Do you know a clever way ?

Have you tried a vice? There might be an optimal position to crack them rather than hitting them randomly with a hammer. I'm not familiar with them though.

Thanks.

A vice would multiply cracking time by ~10; and cracking is not the problem. It is the separation what discourages me.

 

Black walnuts have ~4 times harder/thicker shells and convoluted chambers.

 

Found something, hardly applicable for domestic separation , but these shown are noble English walnuts, the veeeery easy ones to deal with :

Jump to time stamp 1:55 --->

I could use a blower or vacuum cleaner if I could comprehend the pertinent details in the video.

Edited February 14, 201411 yr by Externet

I don't think it will work because the internals of the shell are too convoluted, so much of the nutmeat and shell will be still attached together it seems. A vice and strong wirecutters seems to be the best way. It seems drying them enough until the nuts rattle inside is important too. From the accounts I've read it's the bitch of all nuts to extract.

 

Yes, those are the easy/soft/thin shell English walnuts. Obtaining larger pieces of meat is not feasible with the very bitchy black walnuts, and not expected either, that is why crushing is preferred. They do not reach the rattling point. They are for house use only.

 

When there is 400 Kg waiting, those methods cannot apply. Cutters would hardly dent them. Really. They are really tough.

 

Seen maaany abandoned half-worked nuts where even the squirrels give up. If the squirrels can extract the contents of a couple a day, well, that would mean a bellyfull for them.

 

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juglans_nigra]

Edited February 14, 201411 yr by Externet

Perhaps that is why walnuts are so healthy: you expend far more energy getting to the nutritious part than that part actually gives you.

Have you passed the point at which they could still be pickled? And to be honest 400kg of pickled walnuts sounds a lot even to me - and I loved pickled walnuts. But if you've got lemons...