I've eaten lots of shellbark hickory. They are quite good.

thanks I will get some. how hard are they to get into? I have hundreds of black walnut that Im going to cut and sell as the nuts are near impossible to get into

I looked on stark bros and they didnt have those nutcrackers anymore. and I didnt even know they existed. and my walnuts were in effect worthless. are there specialized nutcrackers that remove the hull from the walnut as well? If not, how does one do it?

Here's the nutcracker that Stark Bros. is selling. I saw it just the other week while looking through their catalog is how I knew they had it. Do a search for nutcracker and black walnut, or hickory nut and you'll get results for other models.

I know of no tool to remove the hulls from either black walnut or butternut. I just use an old pair of sneakers (tennis shoes, etc..) A lot of people here where I live pour them out on the road or driveway and run back-and-forth over them with their car. Voila! ... 2 mins and a tree's worth of the hulls are removed lol.

Edit: Don't do the car trick (nor even use the old shoes) if you have a nice, clean concrete driveway or sidewalk. It will stain! Ask me how I know they will stain concrete...

I have 7 Hickories...they are at least 60 years old, and produce like crazy. The nuts are very tasty. They will stain your hands, but not nearly as much as walnuts! I use the rocket nutcracker...they are all over ebay for not too much money. Don't know how it would work on walnuts, but does a great job on Hickories.

BBlood,

I'm late to the party.

Chinkapin oak acorns have the highest fat content of any of the white oak group. Still, you're gonna have to hull, grind and leach them to remove tannins. Otherwise, they're relatively bitter, like most acorns straight from the tree... and they're quite small, compared to many other acorns.

Shellbark hickories... good! Large nut, with fairly thick shell; I have a hard time believing that Donna R's little Reed's Rocket pecan cracker can even begin to crack one - but she may have an exceptional hickory - I have a couple of really thin-shelled shagbark selections that I can crack with a Rocket... but have never seen a shellbark that you could even begin to crack with one. A hard-shell nutcracker, like Kenkel or Mr. Hickory... designed for use on black walnuts and hickories is your best bet. Stay away from cheap Chinese knock-offs... I've seen some copies of the Master Cracker that broke the first time folks tried to use them on a real nut.

I'm super late, but for future reference just want to point out that there is both a chinkapin oak (Quercus muehlenbergii) and a chinquipin chestnut (Castanea pumila). The chestnut relative has delicious, small, easily cracked nuts that look like marble-sized versions of 'regular' chestnuts. Chinquipins are more like small bushes than trees. You can de-hull and eat the nuts out of hand, if you can beat the squirrels to them. I'm not familiar with the chinkipin oak, but have sampled other oak acorns, so when lucky_p says these are bitter, I'd take him at his word!

So, why two spellings of essentially the same word? and why are oak nuts call acorns and and not nuts?