It's pecan season and the ground is covered with delicious bounty just waiting to be harvested and eaten! But there are a few things you need to do in order to enjoy their wonderful meat safely...
On a recent trip to visit my husband's parents we got to harvest a bunch of pecans from their backyard. About 20 pounds to be exact!
We shelled a few the night we picked them up, but most of them were tossed into a box to shell when we got home from our trip.
I loved shelling the pecans at the kitchen table while we chatted, Christmas music playing softly in the background and the baby running here and there.
How to Safely Clean and Store Backyard Pecans
The time we spent shelling pecans that night reminded me of my own childhood when we picked, shelled, and ate pecans from my grandparent's yard! Fortunately I had the experience of cleaning and storing our backyard pecans safely, but not everyone is so lucky!
So let me share a few tips with you now.
How to Pick a Good Pecan
First, you need to pick good pecans. Here are a few tips for doing that.
1. Make sure the outer shell has cracked and split from the inner shell.
2. Try to harvest the pecans as soon as they fall. At least within a few days. This will help increase the number of good nuts you get, and reduce the number that are lost to wildlife.
3. Look for cracks or holes in the shell. Discard those and keep looking.
4. Shake the pecan in the shell. If you hear a deep rattle, then you have a mature pecan that is ready to harvest! A hollow rattle means an underdeveloped pecan.
5. Look for a tapered end. A noticeably tapered end means that the pecan did not fully form and will not be good when shelled.
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How to Shell Pecans
Next, you'll need to actually shell them. You can do that in several ways.
1. A classic hand nutcracker: this method usually yields perfect halves every time, once you get the hang of it. The only downside being that your hand will get really sore if you are doing a large quantity!
2. A hammer and board: this is the method I employed while at my in-laws, since we couldn't find their nutcracker. It takes a bit longer, but worked well and yielded many perfect halves, but there were still a lot of pieces that I had to pry out of the shells.
If you do use this method, make sure to fully crack all parts of the shell without smashing it to bits! It will make removing the nut easier.
3. A heavy duty pecan (and nuts in general) cracker: this method is my favorite! Each nut ends up taking about 15 seconds to harvest the meat from, so it's perfect for pecans in large quantities! We built a little box around ours to catch the shells and have never looked back!
Safely Preparing the Pecans for Eating and Storage
After you have the meat harvested from the shells, you need to make sure the pecans are safe for eating and storing. Here are the steps to do so!
1. Pre-heat the oven to its lowest setting. For my oven this is 170°.
2. Place pecans in a single layer on a parchment lined baking tray.
3. Bake at 170° for 45 minutes, or until fully dry all the way through. Not only does this enhance the flavor of the pecans, and give them an amazing crunch, it also has the added benefit of preventing mold from growing inside your pecan storage!
4. Allow them to cool completely.
5. Eat right away, or store in an air tight container for up to a year!
Be sure to try these Cranberry Pecan Chocolate Chip Cookies!
Terri says
Oh my gosh we just bought a house that has two pecan trees the one in my backyard I think must be a hundred and fifty years old the trunk is huge I know absolutely nothing about pecans I need to know more what about the green ones that fall can you dry them out and they’ll be a nut or do you just automatically throw them away I have wagons and wagons full of nuts that I’ve been thrown away and I don’t know what to do with them would they be good for any other purpose and then how do I harvest them wait for them to fall off the tree I’m 65 yrs young and being on my hands and knees is killing me…..we live in SC so the winters are a lot different than MI.
Victoria says
Hi Terri! You can gather the green ones if they fall to the ground, scrape off the green outer husk (don’t crack the inner shell yet), and let them dry in a well ventilated area until they turn brown. Then you can shell and eat the pecan inside the inner shell!
They won’t be ask good as tree-ripened pecans, but they will still be edible!
Generally, you want to wait until they fall off the tree and then harvest them quickly after that. They fall off when ripe. Don’t let them sit too long, or they will rot.
My in-laws have a HUGE pecan tree in the back yard and we use this pecan picker upper tool to really make short work of the picking up process! Then we use this pecan shelling tool so we aren’t cracking them with our hands.
I would imagine SC would be a lot different from MI! Down here where we are in Texas “winter” is basically a myth. Ha! :-)
I hope this helps!
Dale says
yeah here in Georgia bought a place 2.5 years ago with 3 pecan trees on it and had learn my trees only produce ever other year and right now they are covering the ground along with some rain so i am thing about putting on a flay tray in an oven on the lowest setting for like 15 minutes and see if they will all brown then try to crack from being wet ,, is that good or bad idea??? het green horn from New Hampshire ,, only 2.5 years in the south already yall
Edith Grabowsky says
I’m in GA, too! We have a tree in our backyard that produces good pecans every other year, too. Love having it!
Donna says
Hi Victoria! 🙋🏼♀️
I already receive your newsletter and did not even think to ask you about storing backyard pecans! So, I googled it and they said that you had to soak the pecans in white vinegar and water for so many hours do to a bacteria that is on them. Then you have to put them in the oven until they are completely dry, THEN crack them open and clean, THEN store them in an airtight container and store them in the REFRIGERATOR!!! I did one batch, but thought to myself, I have eaten these right out of the shell without any processing!! What do you think of this?? I can not see storing so many in my refrigerator!! LOL
THANK YOU!!
Warmly, Donna
Victoria says
Hi Donna!
You can definitely do them that way, but we process them as outlined in this post (at the bottom) by heat curing them and storing them at room temp instead!
You do want to kill any bacteria or bugs, because while they would be fine out of the shell fresh without processing, they likely wouldn’t be fine a year later. I hope that helps! I’m with you on not wanting to keep a bunch of stuff in the fridge/freezer if I can avoid it!
Enjoy!
Ginny says
Green shell pecan can I leave them on the ground and put a can or something over them until they ripe.The squirrels & I are fighting over them and I think the squirrels are winning the fight😊 I don’t mind sharing but the more pecans I have the more squirrels are gathering them up
Victoria says
Hi Ginny! I would just gather them and let them ripen inside! That way you avoid the whole issue :-) Enjoy!
Janice says
We have the same nut cracker as you and I’d love to build a box for it to catch shells. Is there a way I could see a picture of what you made to give us an idea?