1668 Acorns - The Fuel Of The Future - A Super Easy Way To Remove Tannins

[@michailnicki2224]

Acorns can actually be quite easily blanched for effectively free. You just need to smash them, put them in a bag and use the water you use to flush your toilet to blanch them! Either chuck the whole bag into your toilet tank (upper part of course!) or add a second flow-through tank to make the toilet as usable as it has been before while serving as an acorn wash for free! After a few days to a week they should be done, ready for preparing to eat.

[@jimmycorkhill1390]

Brilliant! Best wishes.

[@williamchamberlain2263]

Nice :)

[@christopherfitz-maurice6523]

I really like this one , what a great idea. Out with the brick and in with a bag of acorns!

[@gingernutpreacher]

Oops I used the lower end I didn't read the whole comment as I just assumed it would be ok as it's a out side loo we don't use ( it has a small heater to stop it freazsing in winter )

[@Barskor1]

A royal flush of an idea :) thanks!

[@TonyGingrich]

@2:54 Haha! I don't know if it's true that our ancestors actually brined acorns in urine. But I will say, it's a plausible theory. In my neck of the woods, there remain several communities of the Choctaw tribe. They actively continue their native customs and traditions, to include foods. Roasted venison with acorns is a FANTASTIC meal. I normally don't eat wild game, due to the musk. But the woman who prepared this particular dish shared her secret with me: Brine the meat and acorns in cold salted water for 24 - 48 hours. It leaches the musk from the meat, and also leaches the bitterness from the acorns. I've not yet tried that technique for myself, so I can only quote her word. But I also have no sense that she misled me.

[@Wolfgang3418]

What a great thing: an indian secret revealed - and one single thumbs up ?? Thank you dearly, I will try thatwhen the fresh acorns come down.

[@Mr11thhour]

Druids used to place the acorns in a net and leave them in a running stream for some days before consuming. Also bullrushes eat starch and are good for making alcohol. They also remove nitrates from the environment deposited by intensive cattle farming. Bullrushes are the answer for the Dutch farmers rather than removing their cows and taking their land in the name of nitrate reduction. Hope you are well Rob.

[@Barskor1]

The problems the Dutch are having are about control not pollution aka the government wants to control the food supply in order to control people, starving people will sell their children to eat so asking anything less than that is a done deal.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

nice post mate thank you for taking the time to make it - keep well yourself and cheers

[@slappy8941]

You don't know anything about what the druids used to do. They left no records, and all we know about them was written by their enemies. Stop spreading lies.

[@Barskor1]

@@slappy8941 Oral tradition.

[@Mr11thhour]

@@slappy8941 Wow what a nasty little troll you are. Yes you are correct that they didn't write anything down however "Pliny the Elder" and Julius Caeser both did write about them. From what they wrote we infer that that consuming elements of the Oak tree was infact a sacred act. Try reading a book sometime ;)

[@connorschnurr3582]

One time while I I lived homeless outside I blanched acorns by putting shelled nuts in a grain bag, and suspending the bag from paracord into a flowing stream. The entire process took absolute ages.

[@victoryfirst2878]

Robert, I have to thank you for giving us videos that have meaning and value. Also, when I was a boy scout we would pick acorns and make pancakes out of them. These are the lightest tastiest and best body cakes one can eat. I wait each year for the dropped morales to grab and make pancakes. The trick is to get rid of the tannin acid by soaking the crushed white savory white meat. We would smash the white parts and put in a clean soak, Then you lay in a flowing stream for hours. Than you smash the meat again and soak.Forgot to say to remove the brown colored husk outside the nut which is not what you want. Hope I did not forget a step or two since this adventure was many years ago. Worked for us. Peace vf

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

cheers mate

[@ryanjamesloyd6733]

I've had some very good pancakes made from acorn flour (had a little wheat flour in there to help with binding as well but it was Mostly acorn). Just grind it fine and it does quite well.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

I liked the taste so I can see that would be good

[@fritzwilhelm8258]

John Kallas, of Wild Food Adventures here in the Pacific Northwest of America, has shown that leaching of tannins can be achieved in a few hours of an afternoon. High pressure spray from a hose into a flat pan with a supported filter, allowed to drain several times will do the trick. With this cold water treatment many of the fats and oils are preserved. This is a much faster and efficient mode of tannin removal than one hears of elsewhere, as I've seen for myself when I attended his acorn processing workshop back in fall 2010. I've found it very helpful to use a hand-cranked nut cracking machine called the DaveBilt nutcracker. If the nuts are first dried and sent through the mill, mostly wholes and halves can be obtained to the tune of 40-50 lbs an hour (depending on your stamina!). Both are very effective methods that greatly reduce production time and the overall usability of native nuts and their oils.

[@robertnancarrow5021]

Enjoy tuning in and catching up with more knowledge you share and enjoy your sense of humor.. Cheers.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

awesome cheers mate

[@bobmiller7502]

loved the way his face light up and belly laugh after eating the Acorns, so glad i stumbled upon this channel, what a thought provoking thing of beauty it is, im binging at the moment, i can feel my constructive juices flowing, and the old cogs grinding,,what a blessing,,thanks for sharing,,bob&MrTao,xx

[@audiowan]

First i would like to thank Robert for producing such great videos. Collecting Acorns; more and more... I was using a mini forced fan/rocket stove to bake different materials (in a metal pipe).. (with small hole for exhaust) at high temperatures in order to try and make high conductive carbon, well... the acorn "caps" when dry make an excellent low resistance carbon, and also; (when burned) a Super fuel!! I call it almost orange colour heat ...

[@WileHeCoyote]

Can we take a moment to appreciate that an ancient white oak is not only a cool tree, it's shade, it's bread, its fuel and it ground foot print is literally the diameter of the trunk!

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

nice one mate - we definitely should do that - cheers

[@jsoswell]

You must have Red Oak acorns. White Oak can be eaten raw, and taste good. Love everything you do!

[@jsoswell]

Never mind, you're not using red oak. :) That will teach me to watch the video all the way before commenting.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

lol - it's English oak mate -that's a bit bitter - not as bad as red oak thought

[@irishfruitandberries9059]

Holm oak is the one you want - has a lot less tannins than most other oaks

[@hubrisnaut]

You have to fight off the wild animals to collect white oak acorns or beach nuts. I found some places near humans they avoid though. Nice treat.

[@FollowPhotiniByDesign]

Centuries ago, another popular method for leaching tannins from acorns was placing your acorns in a hessian sack, and then anchoring it into a river which was left for anything between 3/4 weeks and then collected at a later date. The acorns were then dried and crushed into a powder ready for baking. I tried it one on the river test with surprisingly good results, the river method apparently gives the acorn powder a preserved distinctive taste, I can't confirm that thought because I haven't tried any other methods...

[@308dad8]

Weeks sounds like a long time. There was a show once on Discovery I think called HillBilly Blood. Well the two stars were on an impromptu hike and came across a bunch of acorns and they smashed them and soaked them overnight and had improvised pancakes in the morning. Tannic acid is water soluble so moving water is going to take the tannins fairly quickly. I usually make cover scent from acorns and I throw the used acorns back out but realistically I could probably eat them as soon as they cool afterwards because I boil water then fill the water with fresh acorns and let it steep like tea until the water is as dark as I’m going to get it. The darker it gets the better it works. I had a deer walk upwind to my ladderstand when I sprayed my boots with acorn scent.

[@kmoecub]

@@308dad8 You do realize that "reality" TV isn't real, don't you?

[@emrekipmen]

I make acorn bread when I have energy and time to boil those numerous times. It tastes delicious. A cup of ground acorn, a couple of eggs and some baking powder. But it time consuming process. The technique you showed is brilliant, I'll definitely try it this winter. Thank you!

[@ile84]

I can almost see this future "Moonshiners" episode where they make "Acorn shine". 😁

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

lol - I am tempted!

[@snuffoutrouge5109]

if its for ethanol production would it matter if tannin is in the brew as it would be left behind after the distillation ? if moon shine discard the first 150 mL of distillation as this is methanol.

[@PelletJamie]

I use Acorns to heat my house... grind them up and pelletize them for a pellet stove... also good at keeping over night embers alight on a traditional wood stove.

[@TheKlink]

funny, they look like pellets already

[@Barskor1]

The ash from that must make great fertilizer.

[@PelletJamie]

@@Barskor1 Certainly... the ground material is the best medium for growing mushrooms in also..

[@PelletJamie]

@@TheKlink Yes, they are just a little too big for the auger but not far off... natures pellets!

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

nice one mate - cheers

[@simontaylor2789]

Definitely an improvement upon my great-grandmother's methodology, interesting, thank you Robert.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

awesome mate x

[@AndreaDingbatt]

Fantastic Information for us Foragers! As well as a great Chemistry lesson at the End!! Thank You!!

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

I am always happy when you enjoy a video Andrea

[@mauricevandelogt7554]

In Dutch the word for squirrel is eekhoorn, pronounced as the English acorn. When you were talking about how to grind up acorns it sounded very cruel to me. Btw it's easier to get rid of the tannin just by putting them in water for a while. The squirrels do the same by putting them in the ground and retrieve them later.

[@gregridgeway8790]

Thanks for the valuable lesson. I've wanted to utilize acorns as food and had scrapped the mission for all of the stated difficulty. Problem solved. You rock.

[@HighWealder]

I believe that the word 'acorn ' is Anglo-Saxon and literally means 'Oak Corn'. Note that the the term 'Corn' means any type of 'seed' in English, wrongly used in North America only for Maize.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

seems more factual and less poetic mate - lol

[@Rainbow_Oracle]

Yeah, corn in the USA generically refers only to what used to be known as 'Indian corn'. People just got lazy and stopped mentioning the Indian part, once eating "the food of the other people" stopped being a taboo, and it became a normal part of the colonial American diet. 'Maize' is the proper name of that crop. Though that word maize comes from the Taino Indians that the Spanish wiped off the face of the earth, the term did survive in Spanish as 'maíz' (see the resemblance?), but it never actually became popular as such in the English colonies. I like the French form 'maïs' best, as it is written unambiguously, and like how it's supposed to be pronounced. Considering that English prefers French forms of Latin words, I'm mildly surprised it didn't catch on in English, like how the similar word "naïve" did.

[@hetedeleambacht6608]

yeah, in old dutch we have the word 'koren' which i assume is the same as corn, which basicly means the seed ( from a plant of the grass family?)

[@ancapftw9113]

The people I've seen use them as an emergency food (survival campers), shell them, then either boil them in water or put them in a stocking and put them in a creek to let the moving water slowly leech the tannins. But crushing them or splitting them makes it leach much faster.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

cheers mate

[@MHLivestreams]

I want to try doing laundry in a river by leaving it in a net, have been meaning to do that for years.

[@martinlicht1969]

Everything we could ever need, nature provides. Thanks always!

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

absolutely mate

[@dinky3817]

True, design genius!! Xx

[@joelaichner3025]

30 acres , hundreds of Oak trees , I can make flour out of them , didn’t know I could use them for heat , always learning ,

[@drock5404]

I am absolutely 100% jealous of your shop

[@garywillis5790]

A proper chemist, tasting your own product! Great Video 😊

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

lol - it was certainly fun mate

[@bigbearliving8727]

I do the hot water leaching method, I do five water changes. I use my commercial made wood gas stove. So the fuel used is very little and is found all around my wood splitting area. I then dry the nuts then roast them in the oven or in a saute pan till a nice dark brown. Then grind and sift them to make a wonderful acorn coffee.

[@mikaelfransson3658]

Thanks Chef Rob! To be a chemist in the kitchen give an other title! Now the real hard work start to the day we make it to "the Acorn butter with bacon and egg sandwish!" Jamii! 🥸

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

lol - my next door neighbour his a chef - perhaps I should see what he can come up with lol

[@richbuilds_com]

The bushcraft technique for leaching the tannins is to chop/crush the acorns, put them in a net bag and dump them in a stream for a few days.

[@LOFIGSD]

My family did exactly that to feed Cattle, and it's what people did back in the day, using wicker baskets, in a stream for a few days, job done.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

cheers mate

[@brendastolecki4755]

@@LOFIGSD do the tannins pollute the creek water and poison the water life such as fish, cray fish, frogs, etc?

[@LOFIGSD]

@@brendastolecki4755 why would that be any different than any other natural leaves or detritus going in a river, you could cut all the trees down, to stop anything that falls off a tree going in water, but then there would be no oxygen, if you want to worry about things in water, I suggest roundup and nitrates etc, than a few acorns.

[@aaronfranklin324]

That's Fantastic Murray! I've used your stong tea suggestions for tannin fixative flower petal water proof non toxic hair dye. Obviously bioplastic cross-linking is another possibility. Do the oils come out in the Ethanol solution? If so they should easily be recovered for diesel, heating or cooking fuel. With Bayer Chemicals killing our New Zealand Avocado industry, paying 3cents each, with exclusive supply contracts and it costing more to harvest than the 150quid per tonne they ate paying, the 6tons per hectare of oil you can get makes SVO biodiesel our only option. Since JabCinders has closed our only oil refinery. And diesel and petrol now over 12 bucks a gallon.

[@tryingtoknow8190]

YIKES! Arden is a Schwabolyte so no wonder.

[@jett0237]

Awesome video and concept!

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

Glad you liked it!

[@matermangros]

Awesome video!.. ..I could see this as a commercial process...divert some of the ending ethanol back to be used during the solute process...with side products to help offset overhead...tannins, flours, sugars, booze, ...what more does one need? Seems a very straightforward simple process with scalability...Tremendous!!

[@Barskor1]

IRC the leavings can be fed to pigs bacon bacon!

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

yeah it seems ideal to me too and there is also a win on the planting of oak trees !

[@matermangros]

@@ThinkingandTinkering I've got both hogs and oaks red and white and black as well as chinkapins...though it's a small acreage woodlot...it might be safer than moonshine lol

[@AppliedCryogenics]

As someone who loves iced tea to excess, I can assure you that Tannin is toxic. Maybe it's not dangerously so, but it is a spectacular emetic.

[@hubrisnaut]

omg... I remember learning about the word 'emetic' when I was young the hard way. The field guide said it was an emetic and I didn't know the word. Do not NOT nibble on wild mustard roots unless you want to violently disgorge your upper alimentary canal... lol...

[@ChannonWW2214]

I've heard the word before but now I know for sure what it means thanks.

[@hubrisnaut]

@@ChannonWW2214 It means it makes you throw up.

[@WinkLinkletter]

Similarly, an abundant plant here in the south-eastern US (probably all over) known as pokeweed (Polk Salad once cooked) requires toxin removal preparation of multiple boils before eating. They are like mustard, collard or turnip greens when finished.

[@Naturerockwood]

Pick early growh .ten fifteen inches tall boil once .drain rinse and cook with eggs

[@paulflute]

fascinating.. and you are a joy.. yes I'd heard the bag in a river one.. and yes too the toilet cistern is the modern equivalent.. I hear people using it to soak and desalinate slated cod.. bacalhau being the most popular dish here in Portugal

[@gregoryalec689]

I remember the video of acorn coffee Ash made for you fellows.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

wow - that is an awesome memory mate!

[@GeeTrieste]

Amazingly good. I was gonna say don't use methyl alcohol in any food product, even the trace amounts after drying is bad. Vodka for sure, then distill it when finished for reuse. And then you have food, something that is apparently produced in megatons and mostly thrown away or left to rot or feed other animals. I will definitely put this one on my survival skills list!

[@jamesross1003]

Very interesting. I knew about the cold method of rinsing the acorns over and over again. Now I know a new way. Thanks! Keep the videos coming!

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

cheers mate

[@ananddharwar2198]

Tannins can also be removed effectively by pressure cooking the material with a wood ash solution ( mainly potassium) followed by rapid depressurising by removing the weight . This causes an internal boiling causing the tannins and lignins to be removed rapidly as black solution. The potassium tannate will be valuable as a nutrient for plants as well I think.

[@cringirl]

Just found your channel, and this is the third video that I have watched and I am majorly impressed! Thank you so much, I look forward to making my way through the huge library of videos that you seem to add to all of the time. So awesome! Acorns!

[@kirkmorrison6131]

I am part Cherokee, I have and do eat acorns I just leech them in the out flow from my pond and in the Water Closet supply tank. I make flatbread, how cakes and pancakes from them and use it as a flour extender

[@dinky3817]

I have only ever watched 3 of your videos all this morning, I'm ill with covid, you are so jolly you cheered me up and i learned some things, especially how to heat our home this winter and use acorns we are sitting on so many I the Sherwood forest, so I've been wondering about natural heat and food! THANK YOU XX

[@jamesq3896]

FYI 1% of corn is used for food(U.S.). The 20% of corn exported is used to fatten up cattle for rich foreigners even though cows poop out 80% of straight corn. Yet if you first produce ethanol then feed the cows the byproduct(DGGs) you produce more meat for less feed. So 10lbs of corn =1 lbs of meat normally and instead 3lbs DGGs fed to the cow =17% more meat. The cow produces meat more efficiently with DGGs than straight corn. There is no struggle to digest it for the cow. Ethanol lowers world hunger this way. An even better way to use DGGS is to feed it to Tilapia who produce 2lbs of meat for every lb. of DGGs.

[@smithsmarine4885]

if you press them you get oil its quite a high % per gram of raw material its similar to peanut oil the fuel first used in a diesel engine just press no need to do anything else more efficent if you heat it first but works well cold then a lot of the tannins come out in the oil you can ferment the left overs then distill and make alcohol and burn that too both petrol substitute and derv substitute from one plant nothing complicated needed

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

top advice mate - thank you for sharing I was wondering about the oil

[@smithsmarine4885]

@@ThinkingandTinkering apparently people use the oil for cooking (so you tube shows) I wonder what it tastes like

[@tomislavruzicic3955]

Uh, acorns have a bad taste... But they can be processed for food. During a war here, some people used it. I was young, can't remeber how.

[@ianclarke8821]

@@tomislavruzicic3955 ground acorns was a coffee substitute!

[@CUBETechie]

Did I understand that correctly it's just a use of the waste?

[@Gainn]

I've seen people using solar pumps to run the water through a couple of filters to get the tannin out. Two buckets, acorns and pump on the bottom, filter bucket up top stuffed with filter material that waterfalls back into the lower one so it's a 'closed loop' and self-agitating for the most part.

[@TheNorthwestForager]

You can easily throw the dried meat into an expeller for it's oil. I've done this with good results. The oil tasted of minimal tannins, perhaps because tannic acid is water soluable? At any rate, the pressed oil may be the easiest food one can get from acorns - though a little more research is needed.

[@Barskor1]

It is probably very easy and little time to extract the tannins from the oil with this method.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

nice tip mate thanks for sharing

[@markflint9089]

This really is top class information. Well done for discovering this process, and thank you for sharing.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

I really did think it was well worth the share mate

[@Hugh_Mungus]

I'm gonna try this next time I make wine, it's really easy and available

[@Barskor1]

Salute!

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

nice! - let me know how you get on will you?

[@kelvinsparks4651]

I think the tannins in acorns vary as to where the tree grows. On the family farm in the black down hills in Devon the trees acorns on the high ground are bitter as hell yet the ones from the lower ground are quite palatable and mild and all are English oaks . So the result may vary a little as to where the acorns come from.

[@JamesBrown-yn7xr]

Recommend you look up "Pannage" much easier method used for 1000 yrs and still practiced to this day in the new forest. Get your food to eat the food. 🙂 Also remember Ray Mears video of grinding, wraping and leave them hanging in a stream for 3 days to make a tasty woodland food.

[@alastairmackenzie639]

Thanks ! this is a great public service video ! The agroforestry community world wide will be very interested in how we can more easily get protein and starch (and beer!) more easily from trees.

[@terrywilkinson1570]

Superb advice in so many different ways. Current bio fuels just seem to use agricultural land thus reducing food, but this project covers every Avenue . I love the beer as a bonus. Thankyou, not all knowledge is so much fun.nb love your enthusiasm also.

[@bmobert]

What I find interesting is this that for a "primitive" culture living off the land, this process would greatly increase their calorie availability and possibly give them a fuel source as well as a tanning industry.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

I agree mate

[@kennedy67951]

Well worth the watch Robert and as usual very entertaining. My Grandparents parents did this very similar thing and sold it as the poor mans flour. To what I was told as a young boy is that all the product would be placed in a Still and boiled at very low temps to collect the Alcohol, or was left to settle and then drained so the flour could be collected without destroying it's Bread making quality's.

[@joelaichner3025]

You my friend are a super high value individual , when the SHTF

[@brentsmith5647]

Brilliant video thank you 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

[@arned432]

I remember my granma make acorn bars. No one like those save from my family (they say even it's poor food) but after all one bar and it's you meal. It's actually very good energy food or even survival kit.

[@hootiebubbabuddhabelly]

I've been using ClO2 to decaffeinate my coffee. I WAS using it to decaffeinate mySELF but, then, figured - well, why not use it to decaffeinate the coffee, instead? It's spent in the process, leaving just oxygen and a tiny amount of salts but it works a treat! Whether I decaffeinate myself or my favorite coffee!

[@babystepsgarden6162]

This is so cool! We need to be making use of this. Thank you for more awesome information!

[@Milkybar3320011]

This raises the question about other autumn harvest like the sweet chestnut or horse chestnut

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

good point mate - personally I like sweet chestnut but now I want to look into horse chestnut

[@Milkybar3320011]

@@ThinkingandTinkering this time of year i also love spotting apple tree on road sides, there everywhere, mainly crab apples that have little eating value

[@kathleenbrock2746]

Another source of tannin is green persimmons. The kind that are better when unripe unlike what you see in the supermarket. There is an island off Korea where the juice of unripe persimmons are used to dye cotton fabric making it antibacterial and a mosquito deterrent. It also makes the fabric much stronger. They initially used it to strengthen their fishing nets. I would like to know if it's a different kind of tannin then that of Oak. I'm an Okie originally myself and remember r i d i n g in the backcountry and having my partner tricked me into eating an unripe persimmon. Amazing pucker power! They probably mostly just grow wild now that they have the commercial one with low t a n i n. The only downside is that it has to be soaked and then dried seven times. Great summer clothing. And I think the older the tree the better. There is a Japanese company that ferments it and sells it as a wood stain. I learned about this from a book about the life story of one of the last women deep sea divers who did it without a lot of modern equipment.

[@ananddharwar2198]

We have a tannin from Acasia katechu which was used for dyeing fishing nets made of cotton. The tannin imparted rot proofing property to the cotton material

[@charliemahoney2912]

Thank you for you time. Excellent presentation.

[@bikerfirefarter7280]

Also low-temperature vacuum-distillation used in a 'free' energy process can recover the alcohol.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

for sure mate - nice one!

[@Debbie4729]

You crack me up.I thought that the alcohol that you used was inedible!We have black oaks where we live,and they are such a bugger to process! They have huge acorns! I hate it when I have to fish them out of my garden,and just throw them out.I live in a forest,so we just toss them to the forest critters,but I not that they only eat a bit of them,and that after rains and time have mellowed them.Using vodka is a neat trick,but my husband would tease me endlessly if I used that!(I am not a drinker)

[@finnstadel]

If you want something close to free to ferment one coild use rose hibs. The kind that grows in sand or poor soil is the best. Also a great food source but tedious to clean out the seeds. You can make wonderfull marmelade from them.

[@StuffBudDuz]

1.) Did you taste the acorn first for comparison? 2.) How much, if any, of the ethanol remains in the leeched acorn?

[@brianstone3663]

just the best videos..you missed a part of the circle, you use the waste of biofuel as humas for soil conditioner

[@Ab-qv8zc]

You are a wealth of of knowledge, thank you for sharing!

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

cheers mate

[@PaulThomas-qo9vy]

Ha Ha! I thought you were going to fuel a new or existing gizmo/stove with granules/pellets/whole acorns! Instead you fueled your belly! Surprise! My property has 30 Live Oak trees in South central Texas. Acorns litter the ground starting in November. Even the squirrels can't gather them all. Can the acorns be dried & burned in a rocket or pellet stove? I recently discovered TnT & love your enthusiasm & the show content! Thanks! Paul

[@MichaelSkinner-e9j]

For someone who has a tree farm, if you are getting lumber and using the waste woody parts as either methanol or carbon liquor (lignin carbon fiber potentially) you could also use the nuts as a biofuel or feedstock as well🧠👍

[@mb-3faze]

Just checking: at 5:00 you have 300ml water + 200ml ethanol. And at the end you suggest using vodka which is already the same 40% ethanol/water mix. So you would just pour vodka out of the bottle into your beaker over the crushed acorns and warm and stir?

[@yaka2490]

outstanding love it well done love the rebrew circular method very cool thanks robert

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

cheers mate

[@jamesb3rg13]

Fascinating. This made me reflect on your video about oak gall ink and I was wondering if acorns contain tannin like Oak galls. So that answered my question. The next question is, how to use the tannin carbonate as a replacement for the oak gall? I imagine it’s pretty straightforward.

[@christiankrippenstapel4336]

What about extracting the ground acorn nuts in a Soxhlet-extractor with only a slight amount of solvent (to achieve the right ethanol-water ratio in the condensate)? That would allow to regain the "Vodka" clean - as well as the tannine -> see Dennis Locks posting.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

for sure mate

[@claudesilverio677]

These tannins are very useful. You can use them to make ironoxide nanoparticles in combination with iron acetate, which is very soluble in a water-ethanol Mix. This combination creates black ironoxide nanoparticles which are magnetic. Thats why you can blacken oakwood with iron acetate.

[@rockets4kids]

You left out the $64 question: How much bio-ethanol can you get from fermentation relative to what you need to use to remove the tannins?

[@TimBowermeister]

That was my question as well

[@tonyaltobello6885]

Seeing as you can reuse the vodka/ethanol any extra ethanol produced would be a net positive.

[@miklov]

Fascinating. Thank you!

[@jamesblackwell5141]

Thanks for the video! I live in North Carolina in an area surrounded by white and red oak. Ive been collecting acorns for the past week as they have been falling here lately. I wanted to try making acorn flour with them.

[@rickparker8036]

We just never know what you will do next….which is why I follow you.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

lol - well the world is a vast and interesting place mate

[@josieerickson8476]

I never knew Acorns had so many nutrients in them, but does such intense processing, namely heat, but also consistent flushing remove or destroy the nutrients. As with many foods in raw form they highly nutritious, but once processed not so much.

[@Barskor1]

No it does not the listed stuff is usually after processing for consumption.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

I believe not mate

[@EVtripper]

Great Episode. Surprised you didn't mention our Druid ancestors and their love of oaks.

[@stuartmccloud307]

Very interesting video Robert. Love your energy in the teaching :)

[@PBGetson]

This process leaves room for experimentation. How about washing the crushed acorns with the solution a couple of times. Do it for an hour and filter out the tannin solution and use fresh solution. Do it for another hour, and see if you remove more than 80 per cent of the tannin. I can think of even more ways of changing the process to see if that one is the best way of extracting the tannin. For all I know, the researchers already have tried those methods, but without that paper being on this side of the paywall, I won't be seeing what they did.

[@kreynolds1123]

Using soxhlet extractor with ethanol would wash the acorns with fresh ethanol many times over 3 hours. Probably remove virtually all the tannins.

[@Barskor1]

@@kreynolds1123 I love that method, makes a great hot sauce too.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

yes it does and I like that - I think folks should be experimenting for themselves

[@johnparsons9620]

Apart from Ersatz coffee Acorns were fermented to Acetone by the Germans. Britain fermented Horse Chestnut. They got school children to collect these. I'm not sure what microorganisms were used for this. Acetone stabilises Nitro Glycerine & Cordite.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

nice one mate thanks for posting

[@annacichocka7734]

Wow just wow. This is amazing

[@theTeknoViking]

Great video, inspiring! I've got a bunch of oak trees around my house here. Acorn vodka sounds like an interesting project :-D

[@PhiloSage]

At 00:07:06 when I saw the fluid with the tannins I thought to myself one could sell that for tanning, as leaching acorns the solution is too diluted to be of any use. Then a minute later you pointed out the same thing.

[@boathemian7694]

Sir you sound like Alain Villiers, a sailor from many years ago. Awesome channel

[@helmutzollner5496]

Wow! Very interesting. You so fond the most amazing stuff. Well done and thanks

[@jimmyfortrue3741]

I had heard of an American Indian method of burying acorns (whole or crushed, I don't remember) in freshwater streams and leaving them for a certain time letting the running water flush the tannin out.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

I heard that too - cheers mate

[@specialservicesequipment393]

Tanic acid is useful for preventing and removing rust from steel/iron.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

nice tip mate cheers

[@JevoUK]

Great video we have just learnt that acorns can be edible, so thanks for this video.

[@miken7629]

They use vodka in a similar process with marijuana to extract oil. They use a blender to chop up marijuana/vodka, makes a tea, filter out the leaves, evaporate the water, and you are left with a concentrated oil they put on gummie bears.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

cheers mate

[@karlmyers6518]

I need to run my still again. It's definitely time to do some more research and education purposes stuff. I do have 150 litres to run

[@h.gharvey3561]

You are a joy to watch! x

[@technosaurus3805]

Acorns may be a pain to open, but hickory nuts are an order of magnitude harder... worth it though - still my favorite nut, even including the extra work since nobody has apparently come up with a process to make them available at the supermarket.

[@Barskor1]

How chain belt grid to seperate the nuts a metal deck as a anvil and a roller to slightly crush the shells as they are dragged through by the belt the cracked shell could then fall through a gap and get filtered away from the shells?

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

do you know I have never tried them!

[@tdtrecordsmusic]

I just put 5 or 10 in a smoothie with enough water and the tannis seem to be gone. Tastes delicious. I'll give a little recipe, but I basically live off the land so my greens are wild crafted random plants >> Two hand fulls of green leaves (spinach, kale, mustard greens, beet leaves, cabbage, whatever really ) 2 shot-glasses of nuts ( cashews, almonds, peanuts ) bunch of fresh herbs ( rosemary , oregano , mint , basil ) half shot-glass of grains ( wheat, barely, buckwheat, amaranth ) 5 or 10 acorns PUT in blender and fill with water and blend it up. It tastes like almond milk with a fresh salad flavor. Sweet & no tannins . I think all the ingredients neutralize the tannins. Regardless, the tannins are gone...

[@thedude7319]

As A company that does want to make biodiesel, you could use a fraction of your biofuel stock feed of ethanol for the extraction reducing your costprice of the extraction. and if you have the correct equipment even extract the ethanol back from the extraction solution, maybe by using a couple of vacuumpump reducing your heating cost. I am curious, would the tannins be terrible in the production for biofuel, because if not or just a small reduction if purity. You can also make a lower grade biofuel to be used as a cutterstock to get too high grade products into the regulated values

[@perstyr]

I'm now fascinated at the idea of a fermented acorn drink. Could be vile, could be amazing!

[@Barskor1]

I bet it would be similar to butter beer in some ways.

[@ThinkingandTinkering]

give it a go mate and let me know what it's like!

[@windmolenfarm8030]

Robert, I don't recommend the adulterated ethanol that has methylethylketone in it as the ketones are carcinogenic and the methyl comes off in solution as methyl alcohol which is liver toxic in very small amounts. The isopropyl alcohol is ok in small amounts but your liver takes a long time to metabolize it. As I said the methyl alcohol is converted to Formic acid in your liver and aggressively destroys liver cells. Just a warning. Stick with the all grain alcohol (190proff alcohol in the US, sold as Everclear). Much safer! Oh, the extra sweetness comes from the isopropyl alcohol.

[@moochythecat3435]

White oak acorns are very meaty and very delicious... not bitter at all....

[@DavyOneness]

Those were easy to shell because they were green and soft, its the ripe brown ones that are fun to open