Can I help you process your corn?

Hello permies! I am on a mission to learn more about storing corn. I am new to dent and popcorn. I grew a little, but I have so many questions! I am looking for a mentor. Someone who grew corn this year, and would like help processing your corn ( you keep it all) in exchange for a suffering attitude as I pepper said mentor with questions. Who is up for it? Who lives within a reasonable driving distance? Idaho, oregon, wyoming, montana, and utah are all possibilies.

Rebekah Harmon wrote:Who lives within a reasonable driving distance? Idaho, oregon, wyoming, montana, and utah are all possibilies.

Your 'reasonable driving distance' and mine are not the same! :-)
What do you want to do with your corn?

Are you wanting to store the corn for cooking or seed?

My friends always just stored their popcorn in the cabinet on the cob.

When they wanted popcorn they just scraped off some?

I am sorry I am not in anyway close to those locations.

What are some of your questions?

I have some pop corn and some dent corn I'd like to make masa from when I'm ready. My crop didn't do well this year, due to a late frost (June 20th!) I got short stalks and lame pollination. I don't know if I could have grown them differently? Or used a certain technique to pollinate them better? Or how much the weather is to blame? I replanted after the frost.

What I did collect is less than a gallon, and I broke it all off the cob with my fingers. I'd love to see how someone does it who harvests a lot more than I did. I wouldn't want to upscale the way I did it. Also, I am storing it in a glass jar in my cupboard, since it's a small supply. I wonder other folks do who have more than a bucket. I thought I could learn by doing if someone wanted help processing their harvest.

I also hope to earn the SKIP bb for processing corn. I can't finish it with the small amount of corn I grew. I wonder if I could order it on the cob? And if that would qualify for the bb?

I tried to make masa, and it was edible but not good. I think you would need to get an elderly Mexican woman to teach you to properly make masa. It's 'easy' but I suspect there are lots of little tricks to making a good product.

I grew 200+ pounds of corn this year, dried it in the sun, shelled it off the cob by hand little by little as I read stuff on the internet. It's relaxing. There is no hurry.

For processing I put a few handfuls in a common kitchen blender and make flour, then use it most every day to make cornmeal pancakes. I grind up about 10 pounds at a time and keep it in the freezer in old coffee cans.

If you have pop corn, just pop it. But pop corn makes good flour too.

I have been growing popcorn, flour and flint corn for 11 years.  I could give you some advice if you message me.
Wayne

Rebekah Harmon wrote:and I broke it all off the cob with my fingers. I'd love to see how someone does it who harvests a lot more than I did.

I only process enough so I have plenty of seed to plant and plenty to share, but my thumb gets sore pretty quickly.

We 3D printed  a classic corn sheller which made things a whole lot easier and faster for me!

Rebekah wrote:What I did collect is less than a gallon, and I broke it all off the cob with my fingers.

A few years back, we were given a couple of big gunny sacks full of dried on the cob corn. We found that rubbing two cobs together would easily rub the kernals off the cobs. Burra's sheller does look even easier though.

Thom Bri wrote:I tried to make masa, and it was edible but not good. I think you would need to get an elderly Mexican woman to teach you to properly make masa. It's 'easy' but I suspect there are lots of little tricks to making a good product.
.

I agree with Thom, get that Mexican woman to show you how to prepare nixtama, the dried corn soaked in an alkaline solution. Then you will be on the right way to make masa.

Wayne Farmer wrote:I have been growing popcorn, flour and flint corn for 11 years.  I could give you some advice if you message me.
Wayne

Wayne, welcome to Permies! I think a lot of us would be interested in any tips you have to offer. I hope you'll share them here.

I like to store popcorn (for popping) in gallon jugs with air tight caps or in canning jars so moisture can be kept at 13 to 14%.  I also use plastic buckets.  For corn still on the cob I use open top barrels with mesh over the top with elastic or rubber bands to seal against  pantry moths.  Containers can be placed in a freezer or left outside during freezing weather to kill any moth eggs.

Wayne Farmer wrote:For corn still on the cob I use open top barrels with mesh over the top with elastic or rubber bands to seal against  pantry moths.  Containers can be placed in a freezer or left outside during freezing weather to kill any moth eggs.

I need to try this as I have a terrible time with pantry moths.

Thanks Wayne!

An alternative to the printed classic corn sheller I've seen is a piece of PVC pipe with screws screwed into it, so if you looked at it from the end, it would look similar to what Burra posted.