Choosing a Black Walnut Nutcracker

A special black walnut nutcracker is needed when cracking walnuts to separate the meat from the shell, check out the manufacturers' nutcracker guide available to buy or even build your own.

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by Unsplash/Arteida Mjeshtri

When you’re dealing with black walnuts, you need a special tool to separate the meat from the chaff.

Choosing a Black Walnut Nutcracker

When it comes to black walnuts, getting to the meat of the matter is easier said than done. Even veterans of autumn’s first-frost foraging campaigns occasionally surrender to the sheer toughness of the walnut’s wrinkled shell, after having gone to the considerable trouble of husking and cleaning the harvest.

But true walnut lovers will find a way. Some even resort to crushing the shells in a vise or pulverizing them with a sledgehammer. Of course, such direct methods often demolish both the shell and the meat.

So, in time for the nut-happy holiday cooking season, we’ve located and tested a half-dozen tough-nut crackers, including two you can make yourself — one based on the steel model sold by Kenneth Hyatt, and the other developed by contributor Bob La Torre. Properly used, all six devices will split stubborn shells, though some do better than others. But before you get cracking, heed this word of warning: Nuts can fracture with a force that sends fragments flying. So please, wear safety glasses.

  • Updated on Jan 4, 2022
  • Originally Published on Nov 1, 1986
Tagged with: black walnut, crack 'um, crack-all, hyatt deluxe, la torre, nutcracker, potter, wisecracker
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