Making Hominy: How?

Looking around online I am seeing radically different methods to turn dried field corn into hominy. None of these methods mention that they turn out any different, or that they are for different corn types or different alkaline mixes. one method will just tell you to boil the corn for 12 hours, while another asks you to simmer it for 20 minutes; One will ask you to let steep overnight, while another has the entire process be over in half an hour.

Does anyone know why the methods vary to such an extraordinary degree? What are your methods?

Wanting to get into hominy making with wood ash and minimise the amount of energy put into the boiling/simmering of the corn/alkaline mixture.

My method of making hominy is at: https://permies.com/t/54159/cooking/kitchen/questions-making-hominy

OK, that really helped.

So, am I getting this right? You need to cook the nixtamalized corn for hours and hours before you can grind it up to turn into tortillas/ect? The nixtamalization step itself is not enough?

Oh, reread it and I think you are making a distinction between corn that has been nixtamalized and the nixtamalized corn which has been cooked for many hours further before it is soft and called hominy?

j wis wrote:Oh, reread it and I think you are making a distinction between corn that has been nixtamalized and the nixtamalized corn which has been cooked for many hours further before it is soft and called hominy?

Yup. I like my hominy to be melt-in-the-mouth soft. With the corns that I use, and with my high-altitude, that take a lot of cooking. Lower altitudes and different corns wouldn't require as long of cooking.

Tamales and tortillas can be made as soon as the nixtamal is done being washed.

Been making and using niximized corn since this thread but just encountered a conundrum.

First few batches were small. Followed instructions, stopped cooking when skins (yellow corn) were just gelatine film very easy to brush off. But last batch was so large it took a long time to heat up to boiling point, and a lot longer to cool down, so most skins has fallen off already and corn was very moist and soft, you could handle it, but easily squish a kernel between your fingers.

Were the beginning batches underdone? Was the last batch overdone? Anyone have any advice on the exact consistency you look for in your niximised corn (for grinding into flour)?

You can try this method

Jon Wisnoski wrote:Were the beginning batches underdone? Was the last batch overdone? Anyone have any advice on the exact consistency you look for in your niximised corn (for grinding into flour)?

Which do you like working with more? I prefer that the skins dissolve. Seems easier to work with than having to rub them off. I tend to watch the batch, and stop heating when the skins are coming off.