Transformational Gardening


Northern Red Oak (Quercus rubra): Images

Date Location Notes Images
January 8, 2011 Southeastern, New Hampshire Most of the 11-1/2 gallons of acorns I picked were Red Oak from this hiking park. I dried the acorns for 3 weeks. Then I shelled them trying various methods including hitting the shells lightly with a hammer to crack them. I tried the towel method outlined in Samuel Thayer’s book, “Nature’s Garden.” The towel method is faster for cracking them, but takes time to line the acorns up. I think a simple hand nut cracker might actually be faster. After picking out the acorn nuts, I removed the acorn skin.

I tried grinding the acorns in my Country Living grain mill (and even tried using the special corn/bean auger made for oily grains/beans). But acorns do not grind well at all using the Country Living mill. I ended up hand grinding them with a motar and pestal -- a process that took a very long time.

After grinding the acorns, I cold water leached out the tannins for two weeks, changing the water 2-3 times per day. The leaching was done after approximately 9 days, but I kept going until I was ready to make bread on the weekend. This is the slow method of cold water leaching. Using running cold water can leach the acorns in less than 1 day.

By the time the acorns were done leaching, my Corona grinder arrived. I squeezed out the leached acorn meal and ran is through the Corona grinder once to make it the consistency of corn meal.

Bread Recipe:

2-1/2 cups fresh organic whole wheat flour
3/4 cup of acorn meal
3/4 cup of sourdough (made with 1-1/2 cups whole wheat flour, 1 cup water, yeast)
1-1/2 teaspoons sea salt
7/8 cup water
3 Tablespoons of honey or maple syrup

Kneed the dough for 8-10 minutes. Let the dough rise for several hours and kneed again. Let the dough rise again. Oil the bread pan and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for no more than 1 hour.

Next time I make acorn bread, I'll have all of the tools I need to process the acorns quickly.
Date Location Notes Images
July 6, 2012 Southeastern, New Hampshire