how to dry black walnuts.

[kentucky gardener]

pete from just a few acres farm has racks. is there any other way? if not I need to know how to build those racks.

 

[Loosehandle]

I've never had much luck with home harvesting walnuts, always taste rancid. Maybe a oven or dryer of some sort.

 

[Brownie450]

2X2 foot "containers" made of hardware cloth & about
6 or 7 inches deep are good for drying. Put them on 5
gallon buckets so the wind can blow through them.
Jim

 

[kentucky gardener]

2X2 foot "containers" made of hardware cloth & about
6 or 7 inches deep are good for drying. Put them on 5
gallon buckets so the wind can blow through them.
Jim

that's what I needed Jim, thanks a lot.
beckham

 

[paul]

Folks used egg washing baskets. Wire metal pails wider and lower than say, a 4 gallon bucket size?

You just need real good air flow, and not real deep or real tall.

You are making a mini corn crib…. For nuts.

Paul

 

[ss55]

pete from just a few acres farm has racks. is there any other way? if not I need to know how to build those racks.

Get the husks off first to help them dry, after that natural air flow will do the rest. Wear good water proof gloves like mechanics gloves as black walnut husk juice is a strong natural dye. Critters love walnuts as much or more than people do, so protect them from pilferage.

 

[Butch(OH)]

We keep a couple bushels every year to eat and bake with. We throw them on a concrete slab and drive over them with the garden tractor to remove the husk. Then let the nuts get rained on for a while to remove most of the black or throw them in the cement mixer with water. Then I spread them out on the haymow floor to dry for keeping.

 

[Tgrasher]

Save your bags from oranges, grapefruit, etc., that have netting for air flow. Clean hulled walnuts keep well but will age with time. To clean my walnuts, I throw them in a cement mixer and let them tumble for a half hour.

 

[cumminstinkerer]

Grandma used an old hand crank corn sheller to husk them then left in egg baskets out on the slab by the old milk house to dry till it got to where it was frosting, then she brought them into the car garage, shed shell them as she had time from then. I personally can't stand the taste of black walnuts, I love the trees and the wood, just not the fruit, I have tons of them that I try to run over and bust open for the squirrels in my yard

 

[miangus]

After husking we always stored them in an onion crate in the backroom.