Hickory nuts are not always the easy to glean and eat . Their hard cuticle are tough to break up , and once they ’re subject , the brittle meat is unmanageable to take out and so thin that it may not seem worth the effort . However , hickory nut lover know that the rich buttery flavour of the nut endorsement a fleck of a struggle . The honorable time to harvest hickory nuts is when they begin to fall off the tree diagram . However , you will have to break up them up rapidly or you will lose much of your harvest to the squirrel .
Step 1
Harvest the testicle as they fall on the ground or rock them out of the trees . take the brownness , dried outer chaff of the hickory nut with your hired man as you go . Either leave them on the land as natural mulch , or compost them .
Step 2
screen the edible nuts from the inedible unity . Immediately shake off away any hickory nuts that are small-scale , have holes or are discolored . Put the remaining nuts in a pail of water . The edible nut case will sink . Discard the floating Nut : their kernels are not well - filled ( possibly because they have been eat on by weevil ) .
Step 3
Dry your hickory nuts by open them out in a coolheaded , dry post . Do not place them outside , or the squirrel will have them for lunch . Hickory ballock take 2 weeks to dry , but you’re able to cut the time by one - third , by using a strong rooter to encourage zephyr circulation . Stir the pile with your hand every few days so that the hickory nuts will dry evenly .
Step 4
Crack the hickory nut case . To do so , place the ballock on its side , on a hard surface ( a brick is good ) with its stem facing the leftfield . harbour the junkie between your thumb and forefinger and then rack up it on one of its rooftree with the cock , about one - third the way up the eggshell from the stem . Toss the opened hickory nut in a bucketful .
Step 5
distill the hickory kernel with a freak filling . have got the nut over a trough as you do this to easily pick up the fall meat .
Step 6
Eat your hickory kooky birthday suit or toasted to savour their born tone . Or , apply them in any recipe that call in for pecans .
Step 7
Refrigerate or freeze any fresh heart .
Warning
Do not apply a nutcracker to open hickory testis . It will crush the hickory meat .
