Almond Hull Split

I just spent a week up in Oregon at Young Life’s Washington Family Ranch. What an amazing and exhausting week with high schoolers! Coming home to the farm is always good - I feel so at peace when I’m at home, in my orchard. Taking a walk through the orchard, I found the Non-pareil almonds were starting to split - a stage called hull split.

The hull is the outer “fruit” of the almond, but really isn’t suitable for human consumption. It is a good source of carbohydrates/sugar, so the hulls are sold to dairy farmers and other livestock producers after they are separated following harvest. The hulls begin to split as the nut/shell on the inside reach maturity and are begining to dry. As the hulls dry out, they open up to expose the shell inside. Look closely and you will see the “seam” in the almond hull begining to split in the photo below.

I picked a couple to open up so you can see the mature, yet undried nut meat. They are edible, but the flavor is very different than a dried nut and slowly transforms into the almond taste that people are familiar with. They have a sort of “green” flavor to them.