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Post by heavyhitterokra on Dec 9, 2022 22:54:43 GMT -6
George,
When I was a kid, people would gather acorns, put them in a gunny sack and weigh them with rocks to the bottom of Fourteen Mile Creek. They would leave them soaking under water all Autumn, until sometime around Christmas. Then, they'd retrieve them and process the nut goodies. I guess that was their way of leaching out the tannins. I wonder if they learned that by accident, just from someone finding an edible acorn lying on the bottom of the creek? There used to be an abundance of Burr Oaks along the bluffs, up North of Fourteen Mile Creek Bridge. I haven't been there for a couple of decades though, so I'm not sure they are still there?
That reminds me, there used to be an oak tree at the Northwest corner of the University Center Building that would absolutely cover the sidewalk with acorns when I worked there, but I don't remember if it was a red oak or a white oak? It has been too many years.
I planted the red oak trees that are growing between the Fine Arts Building and the Administration Building. It amazes me how much they have grown since then. I still remember how aggravating it was to have to mow around them as their branches were growing laterally as saplings. Now, they're good-sized trees.
There is a lone hickory nut tree along the service road between the back side of Wilson Hall and the Ceramics Building that has the biggest hickory nuts I've ever seen. The tree is growing right at the apex of the ridge beside the service road, so most of the hickory nuts end up rolling down the steep grade where no one can safely get to them. When I worked there, I kept that entire hill free of brush. Now, it's so overgrown that it's hard to imagine a time when it was all taken care of and actually looked half decent.
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Post by macmex on Dec 10, 2022 7:23:12 GMT -6
Ron, that bit of lore is fascinating! It's confirmation of what I've read. Am pretty sure that the gunny sack in the creek technology would trace back to Native American roots, in this country, though I can't imagine that it wasn't also used in Asia and Europe.
You have a great memory for trees! I will have to check some of them out!
Well, I still need to grind that last batch of acorn nuts. Perhaps I'll get to it today. Last night (Friday night) Jerreth wanted to watch a video together. I enjoyed it and... shelled more acorns. Seems I work faster when my attention is on something else. Anyway, I set last night's batch in a bowl with warm water and left it on the counter until morning. Here's a picture of what it looked like when I set it on the counter before bedtime.
Here's what it looked like in the morning.
I rinsed them and filled the bowl back up with cool water this morning.
There is a whole lot to be learned if one wants to take the time to read some of the product descriptions off oaks, sold by Oikos Food Crops. Browsing through these materials I figured out that the one tree I still have from them is a Schuettes Oak. Back when I got it, they sold something like 5 seedlings in an economical lot. It appears that now they've gone to selling larger, single trees or packages of a good many saplings combined with nuts. This is understandable as they have a very unique, hard to obtain resource and Ken Asmus, the owner has been over 40 years in collecting and propagating it. What he sells would be "gold" for permaculturalists.
Reading his material, it also struck me that he's basically done, with trees, what some of our members do with vegetable varieties; he has observed and pondered what he sees, and then taken the time to select and experiment. What he's done could be done by many others, in many other places, and they would probably find similar "gold" right in their backyards.
He also has the largest selection of Jerusalem artichokes I've ever seen. I even ran across an item he's selling called The Thicket Bean, a perennial bean, related to the Lima. I'd never heard of it before. Imagine the breeding possibilities such a find could offer to breeders!
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Post by triffid on Dec 11, 2022 2:24:14 GMT -6
This is fascinating! I wonder what effect nixtamalisation might have on the palatability of acorns, if it could neutralise the tannin and dissolve the skins. We always have sweet chestnuts for Christmas, Mum makes the most delicious stuffing with them, but they are a real pain in the neck to peel.
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Post by macmex on Dec 11, 2022 5:58:45 GMT -6
Somewhere along the line I read mention of adding some baking soda to the water when leaching with hot water. I imagine that nixtamalization would speed things up. So many questions come to mind and give occasion for further experimentation!
Incidentally, I have had another batch of acorns leaching in cold water, now for 24 hours. The previous batch was ready in less than 24 hours and this one still needs some time. Both were white oak acorns but from different trees. Between individual trees the level of tannins can vary. I tasted the acorns from both while harvesting them and didn't discern much difference between them.
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Post by amyinowasso on Dec 11, 2022 10:05:31 GMT -6
I had forgotten the term nixtamalization, but I'm pretty sure it has been mentioned on one of my foraging sights for treating acorns. I'll look into it.
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Post by amyinowasso on Dec 11, 2022 10:43:46 GMT -6
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Post by macmex on Dec 12, 2022 8:55:38 GMT -6
With corn, nixtamalization actually increases its nutritive value. I will go over those articles Amy. Thank you for the input.
I'm really enjoying this project. Incidentally, that last batch of shelled acorns is now going on 48 hours with at least five changes of water and the meats taste as if they have the same amount of tannin as at the beginning. This evening I'll probably put them in a pot on top of the wood stove to speed things up.
Saturday I walked out to inspect the two oaks we had planted almost ten years ago, for acorn production. One, a Burr Oak and the other from Oikos Tree Crops, a Schuette's Oak. I was encouraged. The Schuette's Oak is now 6' tall. I suspect we'll start getting a few acorns in 2023. It would started long before, but it had been killed back considerably by herbicide tainted mulch.
I kicked around in the pasture, finding some leaves to record. Here's the best I could do at this time.
Schuette's Oak Leaf: Notice on the left side, though deeply lobed, the lobes are still rounded, as is the case with white oaks.
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Post by macmex on Dec 15, 2022 13:39:42 GMT -6
Here's an update on this project.
First of all, I should mention that most things I've been learning are things mentioned in the links which have been provided by various members here. The thing with internet sources is that they can be great, terrible or really good and bad, mixed. So I try things they mention to find out.
First new discovery: toasting raw acorns really helps! I put a couple quarts of raw acorns on a tray in the over at 350 F. for about an hour and they came out like this:
They smell wonderful when they come out, but more importantly, most have split open, making it much much easier to shell them. In fact, baking them makes even the ones which don't split, easier to crack open. I sat at the table last night, chatting with Jerreth and shelled roughly twice as many acorns as any previous time.
The acorn meats of toasted acorns are more brown than yellow. Here's a picture of some of the toasted nut meats piled on top of some raw ones.
I'm pretty happy with this new step in shelling acorns. It seems to be working quite well.
The other thing I've decided is that hot water leaching is the way to go. It is, at least if you don't want to take a long time to accomplish this step in their preparation. I had a batch in cool water, changing the water about twice a day, for four days, and by taste, I couldn't tell that I'd succeeded in getting rid of any tannin. While it's true that one batch had gone faster, I now suspect that batch simply had a high percentage of acorns with very little tannin.
After four days soaking I finally took that batch and placed them in a large pot (with yet another change of water) and set it on the wood stove overnight. Wallah! Look how dark that water was 8 hours later!
I changed the water and set the pot back on top of the wood stove for another 4-8 hours and the water came out like iced tea in color. At this point I tasted an acorn meat and it had no bitterness at all. So I dried them on a tray over the wood stove and, this morning I ground another 3 cups of acorn flour. It came out beautifully.
I'm not discarding the idea of leaching in cool water, but I'll probably wait until next fall to try it again. When I do, I may well try the gunny-sack-in-the creek approach and leave them there for a month.
Looking at the water, after using hot water, I can see some oils on the surface. Perhaps, if I do the cool water leaching, we can save more of the natural fats contained in the acorns.
Okay, enough for now. I'm pretty happy about this experiment!
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Post by macmex on Dec 16, 2022 10:34:13 GMT -6
Here's a link to a blog post on Oaks, by the owner of Oikos Tree Crops. I think it's worth reading for the sake of seeing his vision/passion for oaks as a food crop.
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Post by macmex on Dec 17, 2022 11:11:19 GMT -6
Some more advances made:
First, I've found a faster way of picking up acorns.
These are used for picking up pecans or spent shells on a gun range. Works pretty well for acorns.
Secondly, I made sourdough acorn English muffins this morning. They came out well.
Here's a shot of the interior texture.
While working with the dough I sensed that it was not going to be very cohesive if I didn't use some wheat flour. I started out with 2/3 acorn flour and 1/3 white flour but by the time they hit the frying pan there were probably more like 50% white flour.
I can't liken the flavor to anything else I know but it is very good.
Baking the acorns before shelling makes shelling go much faster. Next up I need to set up a corn sheller and see if I can speed things up even more.
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Post by macmex on Dec 26, 2022 19:23:54 GMT -6
This evening I made acorn/wheat sourdough bread. The ratio was 1/3 acorn flour and 2/3 white flour. It came out really well.
Everyone in our home really liked it. It's hard to describe the flavor of acorn flour, but basically it adds a nutty flavor.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Dec 26, 2022 20:02:49 GMT -6
Nice!
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Post by chrysanthemum on Dec 26, 2022 21:28:25 GMT -6
I haven’t had a lot to contribute to this thread as I have no experience with gathering and treating and grinding acorns, though I think I once bought acorn flour at a Korean grocery store when we lived outside Washington D.C. I just have to say that that acorn/wheat sourdough bread looks very tasty and nutritious, macmex. Good work.
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Post by Auther Ray on Dec 31, 2022 19:15:24 GMT -6
I wonder how the ground acorns would work with corn meal? I like what I call corn cakes, my grandpa used to make what he called corn flitters, like pancakes, and would drizzle sorghum and butter over them for breakfast.
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Post by macmex on Jan 1, 2023 6:58:03 GMT -6
Auther! It's so GOOD to have you here! (Folks, Auther is a wealth of old time info.)
Yes, I think acorn flour could be used much like corn.
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