So, I've been soaking the acorns for about 5 days now.

[conuly]

I started off with a small batch, but I have some more I'll start soon... just as soon as I get a few more containers!

Cracking acorns is a major chore, as is getting them into little bits.. although that could be sped up with a food processor.

Changing the water isn't such a chore. You're supposed to change it *at least* twice a day.

The water turns a very pretty reddish brown. I'll take a picture later. It's funny, I expected it to be more, well, tan from the tannins, but it's more red than I picture the color tan as being. At any rate, the water is turning less and less red, and teeny sample tastes of acorns are coming out less and less bitter, so soon we should be ready to dry them and cook them!

Comments

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

I wonder - I used walnut peels (the green stuff around the whole nut, not the woody shell underneath) to dye wool this year, and also expected (because the wise books & homepages said so!) the result to be more brown. Instead I ended up with a (very pretty) amber colour. The colourant in walnut peels is also mostly tannins, so now I'm wondering whether perhaps this was just a bad year tannin-wise - too much rain, too dry, too hot, too cold at the wrong times?

... of course that would suggest that New York had roughly the same odd weather this year as Bergia had, which I suppose is unlikely. Still, it'd be a handy explanation!

Am very curious to hear how your acorn recipes turn out! We have a couple of oaks around, so it'd be nifty to have something to do with the acorns (aside from making chestnut-and-acorn animals ;)).

[marveen.livejournal.com]

What I've read is that it depends on the species--white oak and liveoak are supposedly fairly tasty, while pin oak is less so and red oak ranges from okay all the way to yuch.

[conuly]

I've heard that too, which is why I'm processing each type of acorn separately. Unfortunately, I have no idea what sort of acorn each of them is!

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Well, as long as you remember what they looked like once you know which is the most tasty, the name doesn't matter too much, right? ;)

[conuly]

That's my thought!

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Huh, we have neither of those here - I think all our oaks here are sessile oaks, perhaps one or two English oaks. I guess I'll have to find out by myself if they're more on the tasy or more on the yuck side then...

[robby.livejournal.com]

I've thought about trying that, we've got so many oak trees nearby, and the squirrels are getting fat and sassy. Didn't the native americans traditionally grind the acorns up and then let a flowing stream leach out the bitterness?

[conuly]

I believe so, and, in fact, Steve "the wild man" Brill suggests putting your cloth bag of acorns in the tank of your toilet (that's the FRESH part!) so that every time you flush you're changing the water.

You can also boil them repeatedly.

[robby.livejournal.com]

Some baskets were woven especially for washing acorn flour in a stream. I have a stream nearby, but it's runoff from agricultural irrigation, and God only knows what's in that water.