My eldest wanted to try roasting acorns as we have post oaks and the yard is covered in thousands of tiny acorns. We also found a few white oak acorns at a neighbor’s as we read that those are sweeter.

We followed the instructions from The Farmer’s Almanac, and after shelling the acorns (we found pliers worked better than a nut cracker), did the cold water soak to remove the tannins.

While we were shelling, we found quite a few were moldy or had acorn weevil grubs. We threw out the black and moldy nuts, but kept the grubs. The chickens appreciated the treat.

After changing out the water a few times, we dried the acorns in the oven, but the “keep warm” option on my oven didn’t just dry, it started roasting the acorns, so I turned up the heat to finish roasting.

The acorns smelled amazing as they were roasting! We let them cool when they were chocolate brown, added a little salt, and tried them. No. Oh no. Definitely no. I can see how ground acorn could be a coffee substitute, it has a similar taste to coffee beans, but ours were dense and chewy, not at all pleasant to eat. So these go on our “only during an apocalypse” food list!