Acorn flour experiment

fair enough. I always weigh the pros and cons of gathering food in the wild.......am i going to expend more energy and time than I am going to reap by gathering food....
 
Bushman5 said:
fair enough. I always weigh the pros and cons of gathering food in the wild.......am i going to expend more energy and time than I am going to reap by gathering food....
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I would think that for a short term survival situation, a couple of days, it wouldn't be worth the effort. If, however, you were stranded in an area for a protracted period of time (for whatever reason) knowing how to process and use acorns might be a valuable skill.

No, it's not something you would need to know short-term, but then again, it doesn't hurt you to know how... and it's kinda interesting, whether you need it or not.
 
In My Side of the Mountain, he adds some ash to the flour to keep it from being bitter...while ive never done that, nor eaten acorn, i thought i would offer...
 
Mix with other flours or corn meal. Tom Browns Tracker school threads might be helpful.
 
Update - I peeled the rest last night and got about 1 1/2 cups of acorn nuts. These are grey after boiling. They went into the refrigerator in small container filled with water to leach some more.

They're considerably less bitter, but still need a bit of work. So I changed the water and they went back in.

I also found a blog where someone did almost exactly what I'm doing.

As to the food value in a survival situation, I'm not sure. As said, if I was in one spot for a few days, I'd consider it. And after this experiment, I may have a bit of practical knowledge.

I'm having fun and learming, that's for sure, which is what it's about for me.
 
halo2 said:
Update - I peeled the rest last night and got about 1 1/2 cups of acorn nuts. These are grey after boiling. They went into the refrigerator in small container filled with water to leach some more.

They're considerably less bitter, but still need a bit of work. So I changed the water and they went back in.

I also found a blog where someone did almost exactly what I'm doing.

As to the food value in a survival situation, I'm not sure. As said, if I was in one spot for a few days, I'd consider it. And after this experiment, I may have a bit of practical knowledge.

I'm having fun and learming, that's for sure, which is what it's about for me.
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We're learning and having fun through your efforts, too. Go, guy, and keep us updated on what you learn, so we'll all know... just in case.
 
QUOTE=halo2;7687280]Update - I peeled the rest last night and got about 1 1/2 cups of acorn nuts. These are grey after boiling. They went into the refrigerator in small container filled with water to leach some more.

They're considerably less bitter, but still need a bit of work. So I changed the water and they went back in.

I also found a blog where someone did almost exactly what I'm doing.

As to the food value in a survival situation, I'm not sure. As said, if I was in one spot for a few days, I'd consider it. And after this experiment, I may have a bit of practical knowledge

I'm having fun and learming, that's for sure, which is what it's about for me.[/
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That's what it's all about for all of us. :thumbup:

Doc
 
No news. A larger container to hold more water and will try two changes daily. They look like they've lightened up a bit in color, but are still bitter.

I've read several accounts now about this taking days. I'm looking at recipes and am thinking about going traditional. Also, I plan to try some unadulterated as a survival food test - basic palatability. I've also read some nasty things about consuming too much tannins.

Ash cakes, maybe I'll try that edge, or mixed it corn meal as Bumppo suggests. Add maple syrup?

From what I've seen so far (and read) my hunch is that acorns would be a very good survival food if stuck for a week in an oak forest at the right time.
Maybe I'll get a picture up.
 
I was just going to ask the same thing: how big a pot of water are you using? Go for the biggest volume of water v. acorns you can to maximize the leaching. Let the water do it's work and soak it in a big pot overnight before boiling, next time around.

I remember making acorn cakes in elementary school and we added ash to the acorn meal. Don't remember the ratio, but it wasn't bitter.
 
CWL said:
I was just going to ask the same thing: how big a pot of water are you using? Go for the biggest volume of water v. acorns you can to maximize the leaching. Let the water do it's work and soak it in a big pot overnight before boiling, next time around.
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The container is about a half gallon. I think that will help. The other one was 1/4 that size.
 
Operating on the theory that more water is better I chucked the batch into a blender to make the pieces smaller (more surface area of acorns should mean quicker leach.)

And I changed the water.
 
Update - after a week of refrigerated leaching (about 4 parts water by volume to 1 part crushed acorns changed twice a day) and 3 hours of boiling today (2 parts water to 1 part acorns) with hot water changes every 15-30 minutes, it's still bitter. My pieces are about the size of a split pea.

It's in a container again with the 4-to-1 ratio and that water is still more tea colored than not.

I'll keep at it, but I see why white oaks are preferred.
 
halo2 said:
Update - after a week of refrigerated leaching (about 4 parts water by volume to 1 part crushed acorns changed twice a day) and 3 hours of boiling today (2 parts water to 1 part acorns) with hot water changes every 15-30 minutes, it's still bitter. My pieces are about the size of a split pea.

It's in a container again with the 4-to-1 ratio and that water is still more tea colored than not.

I'll keep at it, but I see why white oaks are preferred.
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You can watch Ray Mear's show Wild Food, here.... http://www.youtube.com/user/familyphotoshoot

When leaching, one method is to leave the material in a stream, demonstrated in those videos, for a period of time. And I think the running water would have the effect of carrying the tannins away, and always offering an environment of fresh water for the tannins to leach into. I would think, that left in water, at some point the water would saturate, or if it did not saturate, as the solution filled with tannins, you would see a decreasing level of leaching.

My two cents.

Marion
 
Yeah, thanks for sticking with it. I've been curious about this for a long time myself. We have a number of oaks around here that produce acorns as big as golf balls. Seems it would be easy to get a worthwhile amount of meal from them if they could be processed for the tannins.
 
Would you guys say its too late to gather acorns now? I have white oak trees and lots of them, I have never tried anything with acorns and am interested in trying this...
 
I tried this years ago when I had acsess to white oak.They are a less bitter acorn as compared to the rest.Remember that the natives of this country had a less discerning palate than the rest of us moderns and that the bitter wouldnt bother them much, as that is what they where used to in terms of taste.
Acorn meal is rich in flavour when baked
I read accounts that they would watch squirrels eat the acorns then kill a mess of them, process the stomach contents and have read made acorn meal,plus the added bonus of the meat,read also that the early eastern pioneers would do the same for hickory nuts when they needed some for baking nut cakes.Makes sense to me anyway true or otherwise!I think that an acorn feeding deer would make more meal but thats what I read
Dan'l
 
SUCCESS !!!

It took 8 or 9 days of leeching. I used a combination of boiling with changes of already boiling water and also plain overnight leeching with a 4:1 ratio of water to acorns, but it worked.

The last container of water was very clear. I do question how much nutrition was lost, but I finally got acorns that are not bitter.

So I dried them in the oven at 300F (probably too high) for about 45 minutes, stirring them around every 15-20. I then sealed them in a paper bag and left that near the radiator overnigh for more drying.

I ground them in a food processor (no mano and metate unfortunately.) I mixed half ground acorns with half cornmeal, added milk and fried them in a pan with oliveoil. This made 3 patties about the size of an old school silver dollar, about 1/4" thick.

They were a bit bland, but nutty and not bad at all. The cornmeal had more flavor. I added a dash of salt later and that made them taste a bit like tortillas.

All in all, I'd recommend trying this. It's time consuming, but I think very scalable in terms of food production. If I needed it (IE, a survival situation) I wouldn't hesitate to process acorns if I found them. It'd give you something to do at the very least.

MDPoff, thanks for the link. Truth be told, I tried that exact method about 12 years ago and the stream washed them away. I had forgotten about that...

Thanks for the support, Doc.

Possum, I shelled about 70-100 acorns and ended up with about 1 1/2 cup of ground acorn.

OregonKnifeGuy, if you can get to the acorns, start gathering. Split them open to see if the nut is still good. I read that the ones that float are no good as the worms have gotten to them. Likewise for any with holes or that are crumbly.
 
Just a little word of advice for those collecting acorns for food...white oak acorns are less bitter and preferencially eatten by animals over red or black oak acorns. Hence it makes sense that white oaks drop their acorns in the spring so they can immidiately germinate and become established by the following winter. Red and black oaks drop their acorns in the fall. Because of the lower risk of being eaten these types of acorns can afford to be dropped and wait until spring until germinating, often being helped by seed disperser like squirrels which will store the acorns for food in the winter but forget about them as soon as other food is avalible. Thus the evolutionary advantage for higher tannin levels in the acorns. At least according to one of my botany proffesors. Regardless of why just remember white oak in spring, red/black oak in fall.
 
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