Storing walnuts so they stay fresh!

To store walnuts correctly, it is better to first clean them and then dry them:

First remove the remnants of the wrinkled, black outer shell with your hands or with a coarse brush. We recommend disposable gloves to avoid any temporary discoloration of the skin. However, do not use water to clean walnuts before storage. During washing, moisture penetrates the shell and can cause them to perish more quickly.

Search for nuts with broken shells and remove them. A completely closed shell naturally protects the walnuts from any moisture ingress.

Then let your walnuts dry in a warm, protected place for three to six weeks. During this time, you should turn the walnuts regularly to ensure good ventilation. To ensure as much moisture as possible is removed, spread the nuts in a single layer and avoid thick stacks. Normal air humidity will do nicely. However, it should not be warmer than 30 °C, as the nut oils contained in the walnuts will go off faster at high temperatures.

Dried nuts can be stored in nets or bags made of permeable material. Walnuts can perish faster than other foods due to their high fat content, which makes a dry and cool place ideal for storage and prevents them going bad.

Walnuts can be stored at room temperature for up to 90 days. Walnuts stay fresh for up to 180 days in a cool, dry cellar protected from light.

Walnuts can also be stored in the fridge for up to 180 days, protected from moisture.

Open walnuts can be stored in the fridge for around four weeks.

You should only crack open walnuts when you want to eat or cook with them.

The omega-3 fatty acids they contain are valuable components of walnuts and are very healthy. At the same time, the high content of fatty acids means that nuts without a shell go bad faster when these fats make contact with oxygen.

In the case of chopped or ground nuts, this happens even faster due to the increased surface area. They lose flavour quickly, so be sure to eat or cook with these products promptly.

The harvest time for walnuts is often short, but you can enjoy them all year long if you know the right things to do. Freezing walnuts may seem unconventional at first glance, but it is a tried and tested method to preserve their freshness while protecting taste and texture.

Frozen whole or crushed walnuts can be kept for up to one year. Freezing interrupts the spoiling process and keeps the nuts fresh for longer. However, over time the intensity of their flavour diminishes.

The longer nuts are stored at room temperature, the more they lose their flavour and taste over time. That is why it’s a good idea to freeze or freshly bought or harvested walnuts immediately and not to wait.

Before the nuts can be placed in the freezer, they must first be prepared. You should set aside some time for the preparation: doing this thoroughly will save you time and effort in the long run.

1. 1. First, use a nut cracker to remove the hard shell. This reveals delicate walnuts, which you can freeze completely or in pieces.
2. 2. However, before you do, make sure to remove dried, chewed or mouldy specimens so that you are left with a clean haul.
3. 3. You can also optionally remove the shell at this point. If you do this, the walnuts must be dried.
4. 4. You can freeze your whole harvest or just some of it. 200 grams of chopped walnuts are a common portion for baking recipes, so freezing in portions of this size makes them easier to bake with later on.
5. 5. Finally, seal the nuts airtight in suitable containers. This makes sure that the walnuts can’t absorb any foreign odours and can be stored in freezer bags in a space-saving way in the chest freezer. Mark the freezing date clearly on the container to help you keep track of your supplies.

Walnuts thaw at room temperature within 15 minutes and can then be eaten or cooked with straight away. You can also chop frozen nuts in a blender or add already crushed walnuts to a tasty dough.

Two ingredients make it easy to boil walnuts: to do this, first boil a mixture of sugar and water. Add the nuts and briefly bring back to the boil. Pour the hot mixture into sterile jars and seal them so that they are airtight.

Place the closed jars in boiling water for an additional hour. After that, the finished jars only need to cool down and can then be stored in a cool and dark place for several months.

Walnuts are also great for preserving. Make another a brew of sugar and water. Now you can adapt it to suit your own taste with spices. Pour the sugar mixture along with the walnuts into sterile jars and seal them. The walnuts must then be left in the fridge for a week. They will then keep for several weeks.

You can put ground walnuts in water for four hours and then add lactic acid bacteria that, with a little patience, will conjure up delicious, fermented walnuts. Cover the container with kitchen paper so that it is permeable to air and the gases produced can escape. Then let the bacterial culture work at room temperature for two days. To interrupt the fermentation, put the fermented nuts in the fridge from day three.

Another method is to store cracked walnuts without oxygen using a vacuum device. This will keep the walnuts for longer and stop them going off. The vacuum-packed nuts are best stored in a dark and cool place – preferably in the refrigerator.