Uses for Wood Ash

Jennie Little wrote:I found a YouTube video which said you can store eggs in wood ash. Anyone do this? How long? Does the type of wood source make a difference? (i.e., soft vs. hardwood).

TIA!

Timothy Norton wrote:How about corn nixtamalization?

E Sager wrote:When burning, minerals in the wood do not get hot enough to melt and remain in the ash. Because of this it is a valuable plant food kind of like a San Pellegrino for plants. You can apply ash directly to the soil with results, but it goes a lot further when used as a liquid plant food.  We use liquid ash as a foliar feed. To make liquid ash, use 1 part ash to 5 parts water and then dilute that 1:10 in a watering can and douse. Brassicas particularly love it.

Timothy Norton wrote:How about corn nixtamalization?









One can Nixtamalize corn and other grains with potash. It will work similarly to lime.

BUT, the reason lime is traditionally used, and is far better, is because lime has calcium.

Calcium balances the high Phosphorus content found in corn and all grains, seeds, and nuts.
(The green and vegetative parts of these plants have a lot of calcium, but we humans don’t consume those parts generally).

The science (highly simplified):
In mammals, Calcium and Phosphorus must be balanced and in a certain ratio (generally ~1-2:1) and always be balanced in our blood and tissues. If there isn’t enough Calcium in a meal with higher Phosphorus (any grain or bread, etc), our body will pull out the needed Calcium from our somewhere else in our body—which ultimately is primarily our bones.
So essentially a high grain diet that isn’t balanced with enough calcium, is a big risk and contributor to *osteoporosis*.

I think traditional peoples must have realized this on some level and realized how important lime is to nixtamalize with grain to make it both healthy and more edible.

As a veterinarian I’ve seen a lot of exotic animals (like birds and lizards) fed seeds and grain diets and/or mealworms and crickets (all very low in calcium) all their lives and their bones are so broken on X-rays that their muscles become large to support their lack of a skeleton. Immune systems defects are another features of diets like these.

Anyway, in short, yeah wood ashes can be used to nixtamalize corn and grains, but lime is ever so muuuuch better.

Phil Stevens wrote:Wood ash is typically relatively high in calcium. Even though we often think of potassium as the main mineral (hence the term potash), it's usually the second or third metallic element that shows up when you look at biochar sample analyses. Typical ranges for hardwoods will sit around 10 mg/kg for calcium, magnesium, and potassium. Softwood biochars will run closer to 20 mg/kg calcium, and 10-15 for the other two. I wouldn't be surprised if trees that grow in limestone country have much higher calcium levels.