In autumn, the oak impressively demonstrates its reputation as king of the forest. Now myriads of acorns fall to the ground. This awakens a passion for collecting in people and animals. We invite you to explore the many different uses of acorns. Questions about the crunchy tree fruits with the cheeky little hats will receive a well-founded answer here.
Can you eat acorns?
Acorns are poisonous and edible at the same time. Contrary to popular belief, acorns do not contain hydrogen cyanide. Nevertheless, a significant proportion of toxic tannins, especially tannic acid, cause severe symptoms after eating raw acorns. In return, acorns are rich in he althy vitamins and minerals. Our grandparents appreciated the high nutritional value during the years of hunger after wars and poor harvests. 100 grams of acorns contain a whopping 387 calories as well as 40.75 grams of carbohydrates and 23.86 grams of fat.
Acorn bread, pasta made from acorns and acorn coffee helped our ancestors get through difficult times with their nutty, aromatic taste. For countless children, flour made from acorns was the last bastion before starvation. Natural food was forgotten for a long time and is now experiencing a renaissance.
Making acorns edible – how does it work?
Worms in acorns essentially make the fruit inedible. First check collected or purchased acorns for worm infestation. A clear indication are tiny drill holes in the shell. Fill all remaining acorns in a bucket with water. Whatever floats on the surface of the water is sorted out as worm-eaten. How to make the remaining acorns edible:
- Spread acorns on a baking tray
- roast in the oven at 150° for 20 minutes
- Peel roasted acorns and put them in a cloth bag or laundry net
- Dip the bag in a bucket of water for 4 days
- Change water daily until it stays clear
- Dry detoxified acorns in the oven at 100° on a baking tray
- After drying, grind finely in a meat grinder, coffee grinder or blender
The step-by-step treatment of roasting, peeling, watering and drying removes the toxic tannins from acorns. Whether you actually grind all the nuts after drying is a personal decision. Treat your loved ones to roasted acorns as a he althy snack in a cozy atmosphere.
Eichelmehl
Recipes for acorn bread and acorn coffee
You can prepare a variety of dishes from the finished acorn flour, such as pasta or bread. You also hold the basic ingredient for the legendary Eichel coffee, also known as Muckefuck. The two recipes for acorn bread and coffee made from acorns may inspire your culinary imagination:
Acorn bread – ingredients and preparation
- 500 g acorn flour
- 500 g whole wheat flour, optionally rye or spelled flour
- 25 g yeast
- 750 ml lukewarm water
- 2 tbsp s alt
- 1 tbsp soft butter or oil
Mix the flour and s alt. Dissolve yeast in water and fold in. Add butter or oil. Stir in lukewarm water until a fluffy, loose dough forms. Place the dough in a bowl and let it rise in a warm place for 2 hours. Knead the risen dough again and shape it into a long loaf. Preheat the oven to 220° top and bottom heat. Place the dough on a floured baking sheet and place it in the middle rack. After 30 minutes, lower the temperature to 190°. Do a baking test every 30 minutes: Insert a wooden stick and continue baking as long as the dough sticks to it. A dry stick signals the end of the baking time.
Acorn coffee – ingredients and preparation
Acorn coffee has no caffeine
- per cup of Muckefuck: a bowl of acorn flour
- Coffee filter with filter paper
- Sugar, cinnamon and milk to taste
If you have processed acorns into flour, the preparation is no different from conventional bean coffee. Boil water until bubbling. Pour two heaped teaspoons of acorn flour into the filter bag and slowly pour the hot water over it. Add sugar, cinnamon and milk to give acorn coffee a special touch. The result is an aromatic hot drink that is beneficial to your digestion and has a blood pressure-lowering effect.
What do acorns look like?
Different oak species and varieties thrive in forests, parks and gardens and can be easily distinguished by their acorns. The most widespread are the native English oak and sessile oak as well as the American red oak. Egg-shaped acorns with a brown shell and a length of 2 to 3 cm hang on these trees in autumn. It is characterized by a fruit cup that covers up to a third of each acorn while it is still green and unripe. Ripe, brown acorns either fall to the ground along with their fruit cups or are released from the cup beforehand. You can view meaningful pictures of acorns from different oak varieties on Wikipedia or the tree portal.
When are acorns ripe?
In autumn there is a lot of activity around oak trees because the fruits are ripe at this time of year. From September onwards, droves of brown acorns fall to the ground. During the ripening period, the smooth-shelled nuts are green and partially surrounded by a fruit cup. As long as acorns are hanging on the tree, they are not ripe. A hunched back is unavoidable if you want to collect fully ripe acorns.
The best time to collect depends on what you plan to do with acorns. For crafting and decorating, an oak tree gives you the most beautiful fruits in autumn when the shells are only in contact with the moist ground for a short time. If you use acorns to make aromatic dishes or invigorating muckefuck, late winter and early spring are the ideal season. By then, snow and rain have naturally washed out most of the tannins and made acorns edible.
What can you make from acorns?
When the days get cooler and family life shifts to the warm home, acorns are ripe. This makes the handy brown nuts the ideal material for craft ideas and imaginative natural decorations. Children and craft-loving adults really appreciate the smooth shell of acorns, which can be wonderfully painted. The following table would like to inspire you with a colorful array of creative suggestions about what you can do with acorns:
| Acorns | Tips |
|---|---|
| color | with acrylic paints |
| sticking | with colored or white wool |
| make funny figures | with chestnuts, pine cones, matches |
| arrange | as a decoration in an autumnal bowl with a candle |
| crochet | crochet lifelike acorns made of wool |
| painting | paint from coloring pages or freehand |
| line up | Make an autumnal garland with string |
| Painting acorn fruit cups | Paint fruit cups colorfully |
| felting | Make felt balls with an acorn fruit cup as a hat |
No craft ideas – what to do?
It's not just children who have fun with acorns
Making figures out of acorns is great fun for the whole family. If the craft ideas just don't come flowing, take a look on social networks. Youtube, Instagram or Pinterest are full of creative variations and instructions for all ages.
The popular magazine Landlust dedicated an entire issue to acorn jewelry in 2010, including instructions for crocheting acorns. Free coloring pages for children on the theme of acorns can be found in many places online. For example, child-friendly templates can be downloaded from gratis-malvorlagen.de.
What can you do with acorns?
Acorns in abundance awaken a passion for collecting and raise the question of what you can do with the spherical fruits. Instead of leaving the valuable nuts to rot carelessly on the ground, there is a wide range of sensible options for useful use. The following list would like to inspire you to benefit from the we alth of an oak tree:
- plant in a pot with potting soil, let it germinate and grow a tree from it (see instructions below)
- process into flour for bread, pastries or pasta, roasted nuts, Muckefuck
- collect and give to kindergarten and elementary school as craft materials
- Give it to Haribo in October in exchange for gummy bears
- collect and sell to foresters, zoos or animal parks as food for deer, deer and martens
- Let it dry and drape it as a natural decoration with chestnuts, pine cones and colorful leaves
Sowing acorns in the forest on your own is of course not an option. The use of acorns as seeds is subject to the Forest Reproductive Materials Act. To ensure that sown oak trees have the right genetic material, only seeds from certified stocks may be sown in public forests and parks.
Tip
Acorns against woodworm are a popular home remedy for removing maggots from individual pieces of furniture. For this purpose, numerous acorns are distributed all around. Regular knocking, rattling and shaking makes life hell for the pests in the wood. In search of an exile, the woodworms move into the acorns and can be disposed of.
Which animals eat acorns?
When ripe acorns fall to the ground in autumn, a time of abundance begins for many forest animals. Acorns have long since become obsolete as a basic human foodstuff in times of emergency or fattening food for domestic pigs, meaning that wild animals can take full advantage of them from September onwards. For some stable residents, acorns add a little variety to the menu. The following table summarizes which animals like to eat the crunchy nuts of an oak tree:
| Forest animals | Stable animals |
|---|---|
| Deer | Domestic pig |
| Deer | Goat |
| Wild boar | Rabbit |
| Squirrel | Mice |
| Badger | Hamster |
| Bunny | Horse |
| Forest Mouse | |
| Marten, pine marten | |
| Jay | |
| Great Spotted Woodpecker |
For all domesticated animals, acorns as food are a double-edged sword. In small quantities, the fruits prove to be a he althy addition to the menu. This also applies to the sensitive stomach of horses or hamsters. Excessive consumption, however, causes symptoms of poisoning, such as colic, diarrhea or vomiting. Buying acorns as feed for stable animals only makes sense in individual cases. An exception applies to pig breeds that are fattened for fine oak ham and tolerate acorns well as feed. A prime example is an Iberian pig breed that is fed almost exclusively on acorns. Spanish ham delights gourmets all over the world with its pink, fine-fibrous structure and unmistakable taste.
The best ham grows on oak trees.
Oaks grow from acorns – how does it work?
Acorns germinate very slowly. As a result, growing a tree from acorns is a time-consuming undertaking. The project is still worthwhile because an oak tree can grow up to 1.000 years old and speaks for many generations of the ambitious gardener who brought it into being. As cold germinators, the seeds must first complete a cold phase, called stratification. Only then is the willingness to germinate awakened for successful cultivation. The following instructions explain how to grow a magnificent tree from acorns:
The growth of a new oak tree is a special experience
Collect, check, stratify
Due to a high failure rate of more than 50 percent, we recommend harvesting a larger number of acorns and subjecting them to stratification.
- best time to collect: September and October
- Remove brown acorns with undamaged shells from the fruit cup
- fill in a bag with moist sand or sawdust
- Store in the vegetable compartment of the refrigerator at 0° to 4°C for 6 to 8 weeks
- check regularly for light moisture content and first signs of germination
Sowing and cultivation
Regardless of whether an acorn germinates or not, sowing can be carried out after 6 to 8 weeks of stratification in the following steps:
- Fill 10 cm cultivation pots with seed soil or coconut soil
- plant an acorn in each pot with the radicle or the narrower end facing down in the substrate
- Sift seeds thinly with soil, press lightly and water
- keep it constantly slightly moist in a bright, not full-sunny window seat
- plant in the bed from a height of at least 20 cm in a bright, wind-protected location
The chances of success increase significantly if you look for sprouted acorns in the forest in spring. These specimens have naturally completed the cold phase and demonstrate their willingness to germinate with their first leaves. Dig up a seedling and plant it in lean, loose, peat-free soil with the small taproot facing downwards.
Excursus
Many acorns as a winter forecast?
In the centennial calendar you can read that many acorns predict plenty of snow for the winter according to the farmer's rule. As a result, in anticipation of a harsh winter, squirrels should build up extra large stocks of food, which Mother Nature supplies in sufficient quantities. This wisdom is on shaky ground for several reasons. Squirrels do not have clairvoyant abilities and cannot predict the weather two months in advance. Furthermore, the number of blossoms from the previous year determines how many acorns there are to collect this fall. Last but not least, an oak tree has to get through spring unscathed, because late frosts in May destroy a large proportion of the flowers.
Frequently asked questions
Are acorns nuts?
What are acorns actually? This question doesn't just cross the minds of children during an autumn walk in the forest. In fact, acorns are nuts, more precisely nut fruits. A woody pericarp usually encloses a single seed. Only when the shell around the individual seed has completely hardened does it fall to the ground as a sealing fruit. As a result, acorns play in the same league as well-known nuts such as hazelnuts and walnuts.
When do acorns fall?
Under normal conditions, ripe acorns fall to the ground from September onwards. When exactly seeds fall begins depends largely on the weather of the year in question. In mild regions, the tree slice of an oak tree is covered with ripe acorns from the beginning of September. In the cold north, acorn lovers usually have to wait until the end of September until the first brown nut fruits fall.
Can goats eat acorns?
Coarse feed is essential for good rumen function in the robust goat stomach. Woody parts of plants are therefore an important component of a he althy diet. This also includes ripe acorns. The tannins contained in it are easily processed by the versatile ruminant stomach of a goat. Only brown, ripe acorns may be fed, as green fruits can be poisonous. However, the amounts eaten should be limited due to the high calorie and carbohydrate content so that the animals do not become fat.
Our dog eats acorns. Can the animal become poisoned?
You are right to fear, because large quantities of acorns eaten can result in poisoning. Acorns contain a high concentration of tannin. This tannin can cause abdominal pain, diarrhea, vomiting and even kidney failure in dogs. If your pet eats one or two acorns while walking in the woods, there is no reason to panic. Small dogs shouldn't eat more than five acorns. Aside from the toxic tannin, there is a risk of intestinal obstruction if unchewed nuts are swallowed.
Do squirrels eat acorns?
Acorns are not at the top of Squirrel's menu. The bitter substances it contains ruin the appetite of the furry climbing artists. Squirrels prefer to eat beechnuts, hazelnuts, chestnuts and berries. Even if the little stomach growls loudly, acorns are still eaten. Squirrels rely on fruits that have been lying on the ground for a long time, so that the rain has washed out most of the bitter substances.
Should I remove acorns from the lawn in the fall and compost them?
Lawn covered in acorns is nothing to worry about. The nuts cannot cause permanent damage to the green area. Of course, it cannot be ruled out that lively tree seedlings will sprout in some places next year. It therefore makes sense to remove acorns from the lawn in autumn. You can simply collect small amounts by hand. You can easily vacuum up a thick carpet of acorns with a leaf vacuum or special acorn collector. Acorns are not suitable for composting. You can give larger quantities to the local forester as rich winter food for deer.
Tip
With a close-meshed net you can collect premium quality acorns. When spread out under the tree in good time, the harvest net prevents direct contact with the ground with leaf litter and rotten acorns from the previous year. Beforehand, the ground is cleaned of old branches, stones and leaves. After the seeds fall, the net is pulled down as quickly as possible so that as little wet leaves and debris as possible fall on the valuable acorns.
