questions about making hominy

I'm making my second batch of hominy ever. A friend gave me some hickory king dried corn that was several years old and the thought was to feed the chickens...but it's beautiful corn and she grew it organically to make hominy, so I'm giving it a try.

The first batch tasted great although the 'skin' was still there....by the time I thought it was done, it was too soft to rub the skins off. I guess I thought that was some of what the lime would do.....

All of the recipes say rinse with lots of hot water....how crucial is that? We don't have hot tap water, just cold, and it seems like a crazy thing to heat pots of hot water just to rinse and pour down the drain.
We thought it tasted fine and well rinsed even though I used mostly cold water the first time.

Soon, this afternoon, I'm coming up on the time with the second batch to rinse and plan to use all cold tap water..........unless someone jumps in here and says 'don't do it'....the skins don't seem to be slipping off this time any better than the first time either.

Mmmm, hominy - what a great way to use dry corn.
Another thing besides grits that southerners do with corn and most other folks don't understand.

Do you have a recipe or directions?

I'm unfamiliar with the process but this piques my interest, as I sure like eating it. Hope to have a little dry corn to try it on next fall.

Trevor Walker wrote:Mmmm, hominy - what a great way to use dry corn.
Another thing besides grits that southerners do with corn and most other folks don't understand.

Do you have a recipe or directions?

I'm unfamiliar with the process but this piques my interest, as I sure like eating it. Hope to have a little dry corn to try it on next fall.

I followed these instructions http://ansonmills.com/recipes/466 except for the rinsing for a long time with hot water, I used cold water.

I've since found a couple discussions at permies https://permies.com/t/46365/cooking/Making-Hominy-Wood-Ash-Lye and https://permies.com/t/27095/food-choices/Making-Nixtamal-Indian-Corn that are slightly different.

I did go ahead and rinse this batch with a lot of cold rather than hot water again this time....I think I'm cooking the corn too long in the lime water as it is pretty soft by the time I rinse and some kernels fall apart. Tastes really good though and we are happy eating it in soups especially.

In last link, Renate dropped a link to a well illustrated explanation using Alton Brown's recipe.
http://kitchengardenfarm.com/kitchen-garden-journal/73-cook/280-Making-Nixtamal-and-Masa-at-Home

see the FoodNetwork version: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/corn-tortillas-recipe.html

And see the lovely picture of Nixtamilized Mandan-Bride corn, from the site Renate called out:

(This picture makes me happy!)

The one time I did it, I followed the instructions from Mother Earth News which only cooked for 15 minutes, lots of cold water rinse, then rough up in the colander. It worked pretty well on Painted Mountain Corn. I should make some more.

As far as I can tell, any recipe that uses a slow-cooker is not reproducible: Because every slow cooker cooks at a different temperature, and they just plain old seem unreliable to me. So my recommendation would be to ditch the slow cooker.

My recipe for nixtamalizing corn goes like this:

Add a pound of dry corn and 2-3 tablespoons of pickling lime to a stainless steel pot. Cover with water.
Bring to a boil and then simmer until the skins fall off. That might be 20 to 40 minutes depending on the variety of corn. Light corns lose their skins easier than dark corns. When done, the light skins often dissolve completely. Dark skins may just slip off.
Turn off heat and let it sit overnight or longer.
Drain and rinse the corn.
Drain and rinse the corn.
Drain and rinse the corn.
Repeat as needed. Use a colander if desired. After the first rinse, rub skins of with hands if desired.
The water here is too cold to want to be soaking my hands in, so I add a bit of hot, but just enough to avoid shivering.

Then, it takes 8-10 hours of boiling for the kernels to open up and become hominy. This would be a great time to use the slow cooker. We are at high altitude, so lower elevations would require shorter cooking times. Different varieties require different times.

To make tortillas, finely grind the freshly nixtamalized corn adding water as needed.
To make tamales, coarsely grind the fresh nixtamal.

To make masa harina, dry the corn, and then grind it to a fine powder.
Posole can be made from either fresh or dried nixtamal.

Thanks everyone...and Joseph, I was hoping you might show up I'm trying your recipe/version right now...lime/corn and water on to boil. My slow cooker is just that, very slow......so I never got the lime water and corn to an initial boil, but that is what that recipe said to do. In the end my corn was over cooked and most of the kernels still had skin. Looking forward to a successful batch this time.

This is a very good article about nixtamalization.

http://www.cookingissues.com/index.html%3Fp=5129.html

There are pictures and texture descriptions of properly nixtamalized and overdone corn. There's also a bit on nixtamalizing rye which I'd never thought of.

success! thanks Joseph...easy to follow directions and a much simpler process than my original recipe.
Jan, I'm bookmarking your link...the bit I read sounds great... thanks!

We are nibbling freshly rinsed kernels...nice flavor and good slightly chewy texture. I cooked for four hours or so rather then the longer time...a few kernels were mushy so I stopped the cooking at that point...where most were still a little chewy....

...and the skins did mostly dissolve (Hickory King corn), what were left rinsed off after I rubbed the kernels during the rinses.

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:
To make tortillas, finely grind the freshly nixtamalized corn adding water as needed.
To make tamales, coarsely grind the fresh nixtamal.

To make masa harina, dry the corn, and then grind it to a fine powder.
Posole can be made from either fresh or dried nixtamal.

Rereading this for like the 5th time to remind myself of this recipe. And I don't think I ever paid that much attention to this end part. What exactly is the difference between grinding wet vs grinding dry?

I keep thinking this would be nice to try myself but don't want to commit to buying the pickling lime just for this experiment.  I stumbled across this https://redhousespice.com/lye-water/ which uses baking soda and water.  Those are always in my kitchen.   If I decide to experiment with the popcorn (which is also always in the kitchen) I will let people know the results.   However if someone has already tried this it would be great to hear how it went.   Right now it's very far down the priority list for me.  

It might come up as I think about how useful it would be if popcorn makes good hominy.  I would be far more interested in growing corn in that case.

We've made hominy with popcorn, sorghum, flour corns, dents, sweet corn (what a sticky mess), and our favorite corn, flint. The popcorn is very much like flint in that it takes a long time to cook compared to flour corns or sorghum. We're currently using a dark yellow polenta flint. The 2 color flints like Cascade Ruby Gold are best if the colors are kept separate. The yellows work better for hominy and the reds can be made into cornmeal (as can the yellows). The red takes longer to cook and the color is unappetizing IMO. We've not used baking soda but have used wood ash, but prefer the pickling lime for ease of use. We usually use the hominy with beans and salsa and some chopped lettuce on top rather than going to the trouble of making tortillas. It tastes the same but is a deconstructed tortilla ;>). If you only want to grow 1 corn and want popcorn as one use in the kitchen, I would suggest the yellow varieties for best results in also using the popcorn for hominy.

When I was very young, maybe 5 years old, I vaguely remember my Grandmother soaking corn in a barrel with wood ash added.   Was this taking the place of the pickling lime perhaps?   I remember it swelled up and the husks easily slipped off, but don’t remember what she did with it after that.  

Wood ash is how the native americans made hominy/nixtamal. It is an alkali, as is the lime. After the soaking there probably would have been some cooking involved that you don't remember?