Hazelnut storage

Storage and care of hazelnuts

Hazelnuts have a high oil content, usually between 20% and 50% and when exposed to air (oxygen) they will become rancid in just a few weeks. They should be kept in a  cool dry place and if shelled eaten as soon as possible or stored in the freezer.

The first step is to pick the hazelnuts when they are ripe. If the nut is picked too early the husk will never release the nut even when dried down and nuts that are picked too late will be taken by squirrels and a dozen other animals. The best time is when the nut rolls easily out of the husk.  This test should be done on 2 or 3 different places on the plant.

They are then stored in bags until I place them on the drying racks. This usually takes about 3 days. If  I still have no room on the drying racks after a couple days I will put them in mesh bags. They need some type of air flow to dry down or they will become moldy if left in any type of enclosed bag.

The plant you see in the background was beat up by a buck last week.

I'll show more of that later.

Drying down the husk is the next step. This takes about a week. If they are dried down too fast the nut will crack and kernel will become rancid in 2 or 3 weeks.

When the husks are dry enough they are placed in a bucket and I use a drill with a paint mixer and 2 added weights to separate the nuts from the husk.

I then use the aspiration system you see above to your left to separate the nuts from the husks.

The nuts are placed in mesh bags and are stored  a cool dry place (refrigerater) until they are shelled. They will last about 3 months in the fridge before becoming rancid.  When stored in a freezer 

they will remain in good condition for up to a year. The sealed bags below are the nuts I'm stratifying in peat for my next years seedlings that I'll germinate in March.

I next separate the nuts into 10 different sizes to make it easier to run them through the nut cracker.

This is my drill cracker that I use to crack the hazelnuts. I start by cracking the larger nuts and then adjust it a little smaller for each of the 10 different sizes. I do this to try to obtain a whole kernel after the nut cracks.

Here you can see the cracked shells and kernels as I start to run them though the aspiration system.

This is my shop vac aspiration system that I use to remove the shells from the kernels.

This is also the same one I use for separating the nuts from the husks.

After the shells have been removed I place them in sealed bags.

The bags are then placed in the freezer next to the lefse.

The shelled meats (kernels) will last up to 3 months in the freezer in sealed bags. I have left them in the freezer for 6 months and they where still in fair shape.

We try to use them as soon as possible for making hazelnut butter, granola, candied nuts, roasted, and  raw on my cereal in the morning.

If you like roasted hazelnuts without burning them, the kernels should be roasted for 5 to 10 minutes at 350º F.  The smaller kernels are roasted for no more then 5 minutes or they will taste burnt. 

A buck deer has been at it again 😬

I noticed a buck starting to rub off the bark on one stem.

The next day I went out to put a cage around the plant and found this. I did put the cage up but it was a little late.

This is that same hazelnut plant looking at it from the other side.

In search of hazelnuts

I've found hazelnuts in many locations around North Dakota, Minnesota and many other states.

The plants here were found south of Kathryn, ND along a creek flowing into the Sheyenne River.

These hazelnut plants where located near Pequot Lakes, MN.

We toured this hazelnut orchard in Oregon. 

The hazelnut here I found in southern Tasmania.

This one I found in Vancouver growing next to a sidewalk when out for a walk.

Kathy Wiederholt has these hazelnuts growing in Carrington at the CREC hardy fruit evaluation project.

Kathy does a great job evaluating plants for North Dakota.

Don't miss their field day.

Fall 2018

Fall colors cut short

This is last years fall colors of a hazelnut plant by our deck.

2017

This picture is the same 

hazelnut plant this fall after a frost.
Not much color here.
2018

Some of the hazels that did have a little fall color.

This wild hazelnut which came from Roseau MN has good fall colors every year. It tends to change leaf color and drop its leaves a week before the hybrid hazels.

This is a close up of the same plant, in which you can see the catkins. These catkins are the male flowers that will open in the spring to produce the pollen for next years crop.

I found one more hazelnut plant with some reddish color.  

The rest lost their leaves during a frost one night. The temp was in the 20's

The rest of the plants had very little fall color before the frost.

This is a Beaked hazelnut, Corylus cornuta, did have a yellowish green color. A good way to identify a Beaked hazelnut is by its dual catkins pointing upward

Here we have a typical American Hazelnut ( Corylus Americana) with its single catkins hanging down from the branch, which just start turning color.

Besides harvest I also inspected all the plants for EFB (Eastern Filbert Blight) in the fall, and eliminate any plant that has been infected. This is a good example EFB on this branch.

After the evaluation of each type of hazelnut I found a wide range of diversity in this years crop. These are just a few of the different types of nuts from this years harvest.

This is my harvest of hazelnuts for 2018, after eliminating the bad tasting and the ones too small to process. Next step is the cracking and eating.

Hope everyone has a great Halloween🌰.

Hazelnut Harvest 2018

The hazelnut harvest this year has been a little hectic with 50 more plants producing nuts.

My grandson Blake and his buddy Bobby helping with harvest.

This year each hazelnut plant produced about half as many nuts as last year.  It must have been our unusual spring weather this year.

These are some of the nuts from that hazelnut plant.

Here we have hazelnuts from a different plant. This plant last year produced 2 of these bags full of hazels. 

Close up of the leafy type husk and nut.

These nuts are also ready to be picked. I test them by opening the husk and rolling the nut out with my thumb, if the nut rolls out easily they are ready to be picked.

The husks are then placed on drying racks until the nut drops out easily, and

 separated and cleaned using an aspiration system.

The cleaned nuts are then tagged and placed in mesh bags.

I have drying racks stacked every where.

I'm trying to use everything for drying racks including these modified cone trays to dry down the husks before they get moldy.

A close-up of the nuts on the drying rack.

These are some of the nuts from that last photo.

The different sized nuts from this years harvest.

This was an interesting nut found in a single husk. It looks like three nuts stuck together.

Japanese Beetle Damage

These are Japanese beetles as they attack hazelnut leaves again this year at my son's place in Lino Lakes MN.

As you can see they defoliate the leaves but the husk and nut are not damaged.  This has happened every year for the past 3 year and it seem to be reducing the amount of nuts the plant will produce.

The beetle defoliated almost the entire top to the hazelnut. This makes harvest a little easier.

He has set up a Japanese beetle trap in his front yard. 

With the help of my grandson Blake and Nancy, we are almost finished. Just three hazelnut plants to go for the 2018 harvest.