Breaking
FoodNerdy Recipes Management System
Tag

Walnuts

Browsing
Cooking Tips

Drying Walnuts: This is How The Nuts From The Garden Become Edible

Walnuts from the garden must first be dried before they can be eaten. Find out here how best to dry the delicious nuts and what you should bear in mind when doing so.

Why dry fresh walnuts first?

During the walnut harvest, the nuts are not picked from the tree, but picked up from the ground. Ripe walnuts usually fall from the tree by themselves between September and the end of October. You should then collect them quickly: If soil moisture penetrates through the wooden nutshell, mold will form after a short time.

The walnut harvest can extend over a longer period of time because the nuts do not all fall off at the same time. It is best to check the ground under the walnut tree every day for freshly fallen, ripe nuts that you can pick up.

A walnut tree can easily bear up to 130 kg of fruit. If you want to store a large amount of walnuts, be sure to dry them first. This is the only way to prevent your harvest from spoiling.

Drying walnuts: This is how you prepare the nuts

After harvesting, you should prepare walnuts as follows:

Clean: The wooden walnut shell may still be surrounded by the soft outer shell. Remove these thoroughly and completely with a brush, otherwise mold can form. It is best to wear gloves when working: this way you avoid the peel discolouring the skin on your fingers and hand.
Never wash the walnuts with water, as moisture can spoil them quickly.
Sort: Dry only pristine and ripe walnuts. If they have black spots or appear shriveled, this indicates mold or parasites. These walnuts absolutely must be sorted out.

How to properly dry walnuts

After these steps, you can dry the walnuts. Pay attention to:
The right temperature: It is best to dry the nuts in a room in the house that is around 20 °C. Suitable are, for example, an insulated attic, the boiler room or the house entrance. But make sure that the room is not too warm.
The Right Place: Dry the walnuts in fruit crates lined with newspaper. Wooden frames over which grids are stretched are also very suitable.
Enough space: The most important rule when drying: Only place the walnuts in a single layer in the fruit box or on the grid and leave enough space between the individual nuts. Make sure they don’t touch. The air must be able to circulate around the nuts so that they dry evenly and do not form mold.
Sufficient time: The walnuts need about 4 to 6 weeks to dry completely. Turn them every few days so they dry evenly. Finally, check if the nuts are dry: open one or two and take a good look at their kernels. If it’s not brittle, but rather rubbery, the nut isn’t dry enough.
Once the walnuts have dried, you can store them. Fill them in a basket or in a potato sack and keep them in the pantry. There they stay fresh for up to 12 months.

Keep Reading
By
Food

Harvesting Walnuts: This is How You Collect Them For The Winter

You can harvest walnuts in autumn and stock them up for the whole winter. But harvesting alone is not enough. We’ll tell you what to look out for.

Harvesting walnuts – when does that work?

Walnuts are healthy and delicious. In addition, they can be stored well and for a long time. What could be more obvious than stocking up for the winter in autumn? If you have the opportunity, you should use it.

Walnuts ripen in the fall. They can be harvested from mid-September to the end of October. Strictly speaking, the term “harvest walnuts” is not so apt. Because you shouldn’t harvest walnuts from the tree. Rather, you wait until they fall from the tree on their own and collect them. This way you can be sure that they are really ripe.

Harvesting walnuts – this is the best way to do it

When walnuts grow on the tree, they have another, softer shell in addition to the hard, woody shell. This shell is initially green. When the walnuts are ripe and fall from the tree, the green shell bursts open. Later it turns black.

Especially in damp grass, the outer shell can quickly start to mold. Therefore, you should collect the nuts as regularly as possible. Preferably daily. It is best to sort out walnuts that are moldy or infested by caterpillars immediately.

Clean and dry walnuts

After collecting, you need to clean and dry the healthy walnuts. Remove the green outer shell by hand. You can also use a brush to remove any residue that gets stuck.

Drying the cleaned walnuts is not difficult. To do this, place them in boxes or baskets in a single layer if possible. It is best to turn them once a day or mix them vigorously. It is important that the walnuts dry as quickly as possible. Otherwise you run the risk of the walnuts starting to get moldy. An airy place with 20 to 25 degrees is best. If you dry the nuts outside, you should put them inside in the evening. Otherwise they will get wet again during the night.

The walnuts are dried enough when they lose about 50 percent of their weight. This is of course a bit difficult to control. The drying time is about three to six weeks.

Storing walnuts

After the walnuts have dried, you can store them for several months. Make sure that they are stored as dry and airy as possible. High humidity can lead to mold. It is best to hang the nuts in bags or nets.

Keep Reading
By