acorns

[mrsflibble]

anyone ever made acorn coffee? the green outside my house has about 6 oak trees on it. the bigger ones have started dropping acorns (hey must be over 40 years old then) and I want to do something with them!!!

[Ellendra]

No, but I have made acorn bread. After the tannins are leached out, acorn flour is among the most concentrated sources of edible protein around. (A small handful has more protein than an entire pound of hamburger.)

There are several ways to leach the tannins out. The easiest is just to puree the nuts with water in a blender until finely ground, then allow it to settle overnight and decant the water off. The resulting mush can be cooked up as a porridge, or dried to a powder and used in place of flour or cornstarch.

-Ellendra

[British Red]

Hi, I hope its okay to post pictures here (feel free to remove if not!)

Anyway - assuming it is, this might be of interest if you want to try Acorn Coffee

Well, found a great pile of ripe acorns when out and about, so I thought I’d brew some acorn coffee.



I shelled a good few by squeezing between thumb and forefinger. A few were stubborn so I applied my Leatherman squeezing top to bottom



Now these were big acorns, so I roughly chopped them down to a more manageable roasting size. Actually, after first roast, I needed to take them down to a slightly smaller size.. Small pea / coffee bean is ideal



So I chucked the roughed chopped pieces into the heavy pan I roast my coffee in



I shoved the pan on my stove and roasted outdoors – loads of smoke and a lovely smell rather reminiscent of hazel nuts I thought




Always a bit tricky roasting anything new so I kept the pan moving and went for a darker brown colour. Its worth noting that the skin dries and flakes away as you roast. A good flick into the air on a breezy day and the skin just blows away



Finally got a nice dark colour going – checked occasionally on the softness of the larger piece. I was going for a good hard consistency. Let them cool and bunged the pieces into my coffee grinder and ended up with a nice coarse powder



Placed the powder into a cafitiere and added some boiling water and left it for about 5 minutes



Acorns really do make a very pleasant drink – nutty and smooth. Not coffee of course but neither is blackberry leaf or peppermint and I like them too!

Tastes really nice - found stack of beechmast too - ate that though :D

Red

[old tree man]

That looks really good
I'm going for a walk through a lovely old oak wood near me tomorrow
will be a nice finish to a day out
all the best
Russ

[the.fee.fairy]

Posting pics is fine - especially when they're that informative!

Might have to have a go at this acorn stuff when i see some next!

[DifferentDrummer]

It's always worth checking the flavour of acorns as they vary greatly and some are quite tasty raw. Not common, most are far too Tannic.

[mrsflibble]

thanks for the pics, and also thanks for the advice on testing them.... I've since moved; but I've moved to another oak-studded road so I'm still up for it lol!

[Hedgehogpie]

I like acorn coffee. It has a nice taste, which I think of as slightly biscuity. The frugally minded can use acorn coffee as a good means of extending their supply of coffee beans too.