Black Walnut

[grunt]

A shop vice works very well.

[ottawagardener]

I have heard of some people running them over with their cars though that seems a bit excessive to me?

[mjc]

Actually, running over them with the car is the easiest way to get the husk off of them...the shell, you could probably drive a tank over them and still not crack them.

[blueadzuki]

Also remember to let them weather a while between when you de-husk them and collect them, or at least wear rubber gloves. those husks are full of dark brown dye, so unless you want your hands to be stained for weeks you have to put some barrier between you and them while they still have husk fragments on them.

As for cracking them it often helps to start by trying to split them along the "seam" that runs around the nut and divides it in half, similar to the ridge on an english walnut (If you are unlucky enough to get a nut that is divided in thirds rather than halves, my advice is to simply toss that one back into the ground, as those are all but impossible to break open. Don't worry those usally don't start showing up till the tree is very old (100yrs+ so I am told) all this first strike is likey to do is split the nut in half (which wont actually give you acess to much of the nutmeat but at lest then you have a flat surface to keep the nut from rolling away every time you strike!

[mjc]

I've never seen that many 3 part nuts...but the few I've seen are way beyond impossible to extract anything usable from...

[blueadzuki]

Aug 5, 2010 20:01:27 GMT -5 mjc said:

I've never seen that many 3 part nuts...but the few I've seen are way beyond impossible to extract anything usable from...

It's actually simple physics. Walnuts and their relations are desinged to split along that seam line by nature, it's purposely the weakest point in the shell. when you hit the nut with a hammer the pressure is exterted more or less in a straight line down on a 2 part that runs along the seam the whole way so the nut spits easy. On a 3 part however the split seam distributes the force of the strike between the two sides more or less evenly (you notice that on the majority of 3 sided walnuts, the three sides are still more or less equal, its usually three thirds, not a half and two quarters) which usally lessens the force enough that the strike won't work. A friend of mine claims that's why threes are also loathed by those who shell walnuts industrially, the force needed to neatly split and English walnut in neat halves mechanically doesnt work if the nut is a three.) About the ONLY way you can open a three short of mashing it to powder it to strike it with a sharp pointed object (like a chisel or nutpick) while on the place where the three seams meet at the top, which require you to hold the nut perfectly upright while you strike (on an english of course you can simply twist the nut open with a knife, but that won't work with a black).
As I said before, 3 and thier kin are more often found on very old walnut trees. Apparently once a walnut tree gets to be a cetnury plus old, things can start to get confused in the flowers and you start getting nuts with three or more sides, not all the time but sometimes. Sometimes you get even more (I have for some years carried around as a lucky charm an English walnut that is divided into 4 equal sides, I've heard tell of ones up to 8) I've also seen a case of a 1 sided walnut.

[ottawagardener]

Cool.

You immediately had me googling 8 sided walnut but the most I could come up with in pictorial form was 3 sided:

www.flickr.com/photos/39412328@N00/97334665

[blueadzuki]

To be clear and honest I not saying Ive ever seen an 8 either I've merely heard of them. I know there are 4's because I've got one (well I had two once, but the other one split along it's seams of its own accord and fell apart. It's a little late do do it now, But I see if I can fish out my 4 tomorrow and take a scan (I think I can keep it upright long enough for the scanner to take an image). I know they're are 1's since I saw it, beyond that it just heard
The funny thing is 3's arent all that uncommon, at least amoung enlgish (theyre proabably about the same number amoung blacks but since blacks dont have the clear cut ridges of the english 3's aren't as obvios. Go to any big supermarket that has one of those areas where they sell loose nuts in thier shell pick around with your hands for a while and I more or less guantee you can find 10-20 3's in as many minutes. Even my 4's were just picked out of a supermarekt pile, in fact under all the crud and black spots (the resut of carrying the nut around in pockets that also contained rupturing stick pens, there is almost certainly still traces of the red ink stamp that says "Diamond". Diamond has an unusally high number of 3's and 4's in the in shell walnuts they sell to stores loose though; whether this indicates that the trees in thier groves have gotten particualry old or they make a point of earmarking the produce of thier older groves for the in-shell market (since as mentioned shellers hate 3 as well, this actually might make business sense.) I have no way of knowing.
Incidentally I found this picture of the seed of a Manchurian Walnut (Juglan's cathayensis) this may be an 8 though to be honest I think that's just the way the shell looks on this species (it's actually more closely related to butternut than black walnut)
www.agroterra.com/foro/foros/imagenes_usuarios/Mb/2006-05-31_125117_Juglans_cathayensis.JPG

[kathm]

Not even with a hammer!

[blueadzuki]

Okay as promise he is a scan of my 4. sorry its a little blurry, but as you might guess its hard to hold a walnut up on its point.

C:\Documents and Settings\Jeremy\My Documents\My Pictures\4walnut.jpg[/img]

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[ottawagardener]

Well what do you know. Thanks Blueadzuki.