You can tell if walnuts are rancid by smelling them first, since fresh walnuts have a mild, nutty aroma while rancid ones give off a sharp, paint-like or crayon-like odor. That smell is the clearest giveaway, but it’s not the only one. If you’ve ever bitten into a walnut and gotten a bitter, … Read more
Walnuts are shelled commercially through a combination of mechanical cracking, air separation, and optical sorting that allows processors to handle tons of nuts per hour. If you’ve ever cracked walnuts at home with a hand cracker, you know how tedious it can be to get a clean kernel out of that hard shell. … Read more
Walnuts are harvested commercially by shaking them from the trees once the nuts are fully mature and the outer hulls begin to split. Most commercial walnut operations are large-scale orchards where timing, machinery, and weather all play a role in getting the crop from tree to processing plant. If you’ve ever driven past … Read more
Walnuts are cracked commercially using a combination of mechanical force, precise sizing, and sometimes advanced technology like lasers or X-rays to separate the shell from the kernel without damaging the nut meat. If you’ve ever wondered how are walnuts cracked commercially on such a massive scale, it’s a fascinating mix of old-school hammering and … Read more
Walnuts are grown from seeds or grafted saplings that develop into large trees over several years. The process of how walnuts are grown starts with planting in deep, well-drained soil where the roots can stretch. Most walnut trees don’t produce a full harvest until they are five to seven years old. But … Read more
Black walnuts are processed commercially by harvesting the mature nuts, removing the hulls, washing and drying the shells, cracking them, and separating the nutmeats from the shell fragments. The process is more involved than it sounds because black walnuts have an incredibly hard shell and a thick, staining hull that has to be dealt … Read more