Black Walnut Crackers

Just about anything can be used to crack open most nuts. But, only a serious cracker can handle the tastiest nuts of all, Canadian black walnuts. Here are some that qualify:

Impact Crackers
780 thousand years ago, people were cracking nuts with stones. (N.Goren-Inbar et.al, Proc.Natl.Acad.Sci.USA, 99(4), 2455-2460, 2002) We still can. Find a rock with a slight cup shape to it, and a boulder with a similar surface, and the pieces stay together well. This is Ordovician limestone from the Rockcliffe outcrop in Ottawa, but you don't have to know that to crack nuts.

The technique can be improved by surrounding the nut with a belt. The belt limits the depth to which crushing takes place, so it's easier to get large meat pieces. It seems more modern to use a steel mallet, and may help protect fingers a bit, but really, a stone works just as well.

Screw crackers
A more precise method is a machinist's vise. This gives perfect control, as a good vise is so rigid that the shell is cracked precisely as much as you wish. Taking your time allows a significant fraction of half-kernels.

A screw was the principle of many kitchen nut crackers made a century ago, when most people collected and cracked their own nuts. This one was made by the Perfection Nut Cracker Company from 1914.
Here is a more ornamental screw cracker. The outside has the shape of half a nut, and was often decorated like the shell of a walnut.

Lever crackers
Just about every American with a garage seems to have produced, and patented, a black walnut lever cracker after breaking the first one they tried! Most are based on a huge lever advantage. Bernard Contré offers an inexpensive (and unpatented) double-lever cracker that allows anyone to crack the toughest nuts. $25 Canadian.

This one was made (and patented of course) by Lawrence Hunt in 1982. It, and several similar designs, are still sold. One is sold in Canada by the Grimo Nut Nursery.
Some are much more elaborate than others. This is the Potter cracker; again, there are many similar designs for sale, one by the Grimo Nut Nursery. Most seem conceived to provide as many chances to pinch fingers as possible!

Cutting crackers
The easiest small scale way to open black walnuts is by splitting or cutting them. My grandfather Wallace did it with stump and axe, but with the skill of a lifetime splitting wood for a stove. I also use an axe, but not having my grandfather's skill, place its edge on the suture and smack the axe with a wooden mallet.

A cracker that slices walnuts in half was designed and patented by one Gaston Fornes. It can't have been very successful, I've never located one for sale.

Roller Crackers
Hammons Products has undoubtedly cracked more black walnuts than everyone else on earth put together. They mechanically sort nuts by size first, then pass them between precisely adjusted pairs of steel rollers. It's the best way for mass production, but takes too much capital and engineering skill for small scale use.

There's a great collection of antique nut crackers at the Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum. But, very few of them can handle black walnuts.

John Sankey

Impact Crackers 780 thousand years ago, people were cracking nuts with stones. (N.Goren-Inbar et.al, Proc.Natl.Acad.Sci.USA, 99(4), 2455-2460, 2002) We still can. Find a rock with a slight cup shape to it, and a boulder with a similar surface, and the pieces stay together well. This is Ordovician limestone from the Rockcliffe outcrop in Ottawa, but you don't have to know that to crack nuts.
The technique can be improved by surrounding the nut with a belt. The belt limits the depth to which crushing takes place, so it's easier to get large meat pieces. It seems more modern to use a steel mallet, and may help protect fingers a bit, but really, a stone works just as well.

Screw crackers A more precise method is a machinist's vise. This gives perfect control, as a good vise is so rigid that the shell is cracked precisely as much as you wish. Taking your time allows a significant fraction of half-kernels.
A screw was the principle of many kitchen nut crackers made a century ago, when most people collected and cracked their own nuts. This one was made by the Perfection Nut Cracker Company from 1914.
Here is a more ornamental screw cracker. The outside has the shape of half a nut, and was often decorated like the shell of a walnut.

Lever crackers Just about every American with a garage seems to have produced, and patented, a black walnut lever cracker after breaking the first one they tried! Most are based on a huge lever advantage. Bernard Contré offers an inexpensive (and unpatented) double-lever cracker that allows anyone to crack the toughest nuts. $25 Canadian.
This one was made (and patented of course) by Lawrence Hunt in 1982. It, and several similar designs, are still sold. One is sold in Canada by the Grimo Nut Nursery.
Some are much more elaborate than others. This is the Potter cracker; again, there are many similar designs for sale, one by the Grimo Nut Nursery. Most seem conceived to provide as many chances to pinch fingers as possible!

Cutting crackers The easiest small scale way to open black walnuts is by splitting or cutting them. My grandfather Wallace did it with stump and axe, but with the skill of a lifetime splitting wood for a stove. I also use an axe, but not having my grandfather's skill, place its edge on the suture and smack the axe with a wooden mallet.
A cracker that slices walnuts in half was designed and patented by one Gaston Fornes. It can't have been very successful, I've never located one for sale.