Render pure lard ,not store stuff. ❤

@@debtizzano3066 Deb is right. Believe it or not, home rendered pork fat is a lot more heart healthy.

Petie Sabala Well thanks! I’m glad to be helpful.

Hello beautiful I wouldn't put water I would put bacon Grease or traditional lard

@@MarioPerez-nz8xf results in heart attacks!

dale pate A million thanks!

Thanks!

Why, thank you!

Chris Stafford Good tip!

Allen Emersonn good points!

Interesting thankyou

joecrafted Give it a shot, and let me know how it goes. To me, this method yields a tastier result.

I think the Navajo still use a version of the wood ash: www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/08/21/544191316/to-get-calcium-navajos-burn-juniper-branches-to-eat-the-ash

Hey, if it works, it works. I like it.

Can you dry the corn after Nixtamalization to make flour to store or is this just a process if you want it fresh?

@@paulousley6042 Absolutely. If you dry the corn after Nixtamalization, and do a course grind on the dry corn you have 'Grits'. You see 'Grits' sold by Quaker in the grocery store. Those are ground, dried Nixtamalized corn. If you grind the dry Nixtamalized corn finely, you have 'Masa' also sold in the grocery store. Masa is what tortillas, corn chips, and Hot Tamales are made out of. So, you can see the Mexicans really had it figured out. Most mexican dishes are made from Nixtamalized corn.

@@ExtremePrepper okay cool, been making tortillas for a while wanted to try my hand at growing corn and making my own Masa. Couldn't find an answer on the steps to make the flour after Nixtamalization, if letting the corn dry retained the nutrients from that process

@@paulousley6042 Here is the thing. If you are making tortillas, you make them directly from the wet nxtamalized corn. While it is still wet, just smash it up. Add a little salt, flatten it out in a tortilla press and throw it on the griddle. That 100% is the authentic honest to goodness Mexican way of doing it. You can dry it, then grind it fine, and then add the water back, but you are just adding steps. I will guarantee you this . . . it will be the best tortilla you ever had. Funny thing is I live in Africa, and 80% of the diet here is corn, yet they never adopted Nixtamalization. Sad, as it is really needed.

Randy Cantu Awesome! Let me know how it comes out, if you try it. 😉👍

Always good to know how to do things if the “store” isn’t an option. Glad you like it!

Broad Shoulders Farm 😁👍

Sappy Samurai Glad you liked it. Thanks!

Right on. This method is so much more flavorful than the cal nixtamal!

Does it affect the flavor, one way or another? This is amazing indigenous science.

Outstanding! I wish you great success!

clambert2020 wow! Thanks for making my day! I’m planning big things for 2020!

Petie Sabala Awesome. I have great new videos coming soon. Working on a whole hog series from the live animal to everything from bacon to lard and pate.

Poor hog. ... :(

that is awesome to learn James, thanks for sharing. do you have any resources on that info (like a book or museum?) i'd love to show my students.

actually nixtamalisation was an Aztec and Mayan procedure which was done in preparing corn to grind into a flour. It came from the Nahuatl word of Nixtamalli which was a compound word of Nextli which meant lime ashes or calcium oxide and tamalli which meant unformed/cooked corn dough. When corn was brought from the New World to the Old World, the process was not used by those who consumed it as they didn't know it and so corn was considered an unhealthy grain associated mostly with the poor and one which caused pellagra. Fun fact, corn was supplied to Ireland during the Irish Potato Famine but it had only worsened the condition due to it not being Nixtamalised.

Bear Meat. ......mmmmmhh!

Stéphane Lapointe glad you found it informative!

Excellent! Good luck.

Bat Work my pleasure. Good luck!

Great! Yeah, I prefer the flavor of the wood ash process.

My pleasure. Good luck!

@@radicalgastronomy Thank you.

As good a theory as any.

No, Aliens told them how to make hominy the right way...!

Larry Robertson Nice!

Jenn Crossman fascinating. I haven’t read the books. There’s probably a great case study, in there. I have heaps of mustard to thresh, so there will be a “soil up” Dijon video, soon!

Brian Carrillo Glad you liked it! My pleasure.

Thanks! There are some many wonderful corn varieties. I rotate between three. In addition to this Hopi pink, I grow a Hopi blue, and a Oaxacan green. I grow them in different years to avoid cross pollination and genetic degradation.

Outstanding! You are most welcome.

tyron lockwood Thanks, friend! I’m still a noob, but growing!

Good tips! Have you ever tried using a kitchen aide grain mill for masa?

I didn’t even know it existed! Haha. I looked into it a little bit and some people say it’s only meant for dry grains, so this application might be good for it

@Diego Silva i've been using the victoria hand crank grain mill (well, I've been making my 7th graders to the labor) and we let it dry a bit between the 1st and 2nd grind. thanks for sharing your process, I'm going to try a loose first grind then the 2nd grind with more water and a closer plate setting.

@@thewintergardener after many more attempts all I can say is that you can produce decent tortillas with a hand cranked grain mill, but it’s a little hit and miss. I had the chance to go to Mexico and have a Mexican grandmother show and explain her process to me, she had her masa ground for her in the local mill and there’s just no comparison in the texture that you get, her masa was smooth as silk, that’s a texture I will never be able to produce with the Victoria mill and her tortillas puffed like balloons. I’m really tempted to get a Molinito, look into it, it’s a semi industrial grinder for masa at a somewhat reasonable price

Crow Crow thanks! That video will happen, but not this season, as I’m building a new farm and have no time for field crops. Some basic tips: I plant during the first thunderstorm of the season. Keep it wet until it germinates. Plant it 25 cm apart, so the leaves get plenty of sun. Leave it on the stalk as long as possible, as long as the birds aren’t eating it. Good luck, mate!

LORA MURO Good tip!

Thank you!

You bet!

Thank you! I did the kitchen remod in the late fall of '18. Those granite counters came out of a tile job I did. There was a good bit of tile chipping off of a concrete slab, crack repair, and leveling to get a nice floor. It's a joy to work in.

arturin im Super cool.

'Dirty -Sanch- ...err, Tamales' , eh?

@@alfredfabulous3640 look at tamales nejos from guerrero. Nejo means dirty

Right on. Thank you!

Nate Morlock They are fabulous. They have a deeper, earthier flavor than lime processed corn, but more faintly smoky than ashy. To me, this method is superior in every way but convenience (and convenience is never my standard ;).

The water produced by boiling the ashes is lye water, so it will totally work. You just need to get the portions correct. I am not aware of specific measurements for sodium hydroxide, but calcium hydroxide is two tablespoons to a gallon of water. I’d start there. If the corn dissolves, too strong. If the kernel skins don’t slip, too weak (you’ll know right away, if it’s too weak, as the corn won’t change color in the first minute. I imagine your soap making lye is fairly pure, and I doubt you’ll find it sold as “food safe” though I could be wrong.

I finally realized who you sound like. Peter Weller a.k.a. Robo Cop. ha ha

Daniel Williams Ha! Robo Cop. What you have made is lye. By dissolving that into water you can process corn. I know that the proper strength for soap will float a fresh egg. Probably half that strength for nixtamal.

Did they wash their hands before begining the processing?

Matthew Henderson 🤣😂👍

Nice. I don’t have those ways, but I want to check it out!

🖤🤤🖤

Cornmeal is not nixtamalized.

ariel vicencio You need dry corn, for this. Thanks and good luck!

Andrew Baxley Thanks, bro!

TheGreatNorth glad you liked it!

Thanks, gurl! I love these old, simple technologies. Thanks for the sub.

jager meister I don’t use litmus strips to check it, but that would be interesting. I just rely on how the corn reacts. If there is a quick color change, I know it’s strong enough. There is an egg test used by soap makers, also, but if a fresh egg floats in it, it’s too strong for this, and the corn would just disintegrate.

@@radicalgastronomy Thank you appreciate your help.

Spunkie Interesting. Perhaps I’ll try that!

He did specify hard wood, I think any oily wood would leave a pitchy taste. I was wondering if fruit wood like peach or apple tree would would work. Easy enough to get prunings or firewood when orchards upgrade their trees.

Isn't eucalyptus toxic to burn?

You should use juniper ashes from the green twig parts of the trees. Put a little of the sifted ash powder in the water you use cooking the blue corn meal. It makes it more nutritious and returns the original color so that it’s more blue again. Oh and you should be first toasting your cornmeal so that it’s more grayish than purple before doing the boiling in ash water. If you toast it till it’s beige you’ve gone too far.

@@Aspen7780 thank you for your reply. I’ve not heard of the toasting step before. What is your source for this wisdom? And you are saying to burn green, wet wood and leaves and use a “little” (how much?) of the sifted ash from this? We had a bunch of cedar/juniper that we had to cut back and it dried in our driveway. I wanted to burn it to collect the ash, but we don’t have a copper pit and I was concerned about mixing the ash with other ash… I’ve been using pickling lime since I first posted here.

@@julieh6396 hi there. I’m Tewa from one of the pueblos in NM. Once we grind the blue corn down, you can either use it as cornmeal (unroasted) or roast it. I mean toast it. Some people put the cornmeal in a big pan on the stove top. Others put it on a baking sheet in the oven. You just have to keep stirring it to not burn it. When it turn a bluish gray and you can smell it, it’s done. Take it out and keep up with occasionally stirring it cause it will continue cook even removed from the heat. This roasted blue corn meal is atole flour. You can make a drink with it for the morning like coffee or when you are sick. You can make porridge out of it. Our people used to use ashes, though not so much now. I have Navajo relatives who still do. The fine shifted ashes turn the gray meal back to a bluish color when cooking. The ashes are best made on an outside grill. You need the green twigs of the juniper. That will burn to fine white ash. The woody branch is ok but doesn’t burn as completely to ash as the green and might stay chunky and black. The green juniper twig ash will be nutritious. You don’t need a lot of ash for most applications. A teaspoon or so mixed in the water for most dishes like porridge. Just make sure it’s been sifted to get rid of solid black stuff beforehand. They also used to make cooking ash from corn cobs and saltbrush. Look up some Navajo cooking youtube videos.

I like to let the corn dry on the stalk, for as long as possible, then harvest and shuck. I let it dry another couple weeks before stripping. Good luck!

@@radicalgastronomy thanks 👍

Thanks! I think the yield is around 3 cups.

I never have.

Too dear, just imagine how much baking the soda for hours costs!

Guerilla Grace Thanks!

Thanks! One could do that. This approach is born of the desire to understand the “prehistoric” origin, and to find a way to unlock the beauty of field corn with something that is a surplus, on my farm. It’s handy to know how, particularly in these times of supply chain collapse. I hear Target has been out of stock on canning lids, of all things. If one wanted to simplify the process, you could certainly stock up on calcium hydroxide. The wood ash is always in the hearth, so I like this method for that reason, and that the poetry of the experience, from planting the corn, to making tamales, is precious. I plant when the first thunder shakes the sky, in spring. Smelling the wood ash slaking reminds me of the rain. Thunder, rain, water, fire, corn. Sodium hydroxide does not belong in this poem. One could make ash lye water at full concentration, but the corn would dissolve before the reaction reached the core of the kernel. One could, also make full strength lye water for soap making, and dilute for nixtamalization.

That’s a good avenue of experimentation

@@radicalgastronomy is it something you can see yourself experimenting with in the future? if so i'd like to tune in for sure

@@booon-booon You bet. Sourgum is a good candidate.

@@radicalgastronomy awesome. Subscribed and curious to hear what you find! Not much well written stuff on the subject currently besides "sometimes fancy restaurants nixtamalize other things" but there isn't much else there. At some point I'd like to get into making fresh masa but would love to know if I can do it with other stuff too before delving down that rabbit hole, y'know? Especially if it can be cool local/foraged stuff here from Missouri. We've got some pine trees which is why I was curious about the cones

Sharon Sessler Sadly, no. Corn meal will never behave like masa. Tortillas would be pretty scetch. Also, juniper ash is going to be chemically and culinarily unpleasant. Ash + saliva = lye, so, I wouldn’t. Someday I’ll post a baller corn bread recipe, but that is the best thing to do with such a fine product. It’s about time for field corn to be harvested. Ask around a farmer’s market for some nice heirloom corn, whole. Good luck!

Thank you. I will scratch the idea.

There must be some way to make juniper ash taste good. The Navajo people add it into their corn. I've had juniper ash corn cookies and they're tasty. I wonder if there's a technique we're missing? www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/08/21/544191316/to-get-calcium-navajos-burn-juniper-branches-to-eat-the-ash

Morgen Sellier I will report back with my findings. I suppose that some ash would be palatable. My big concern was the risk of over alkalizing the dish and risking eating drain cleaner.

Some trial and error got me to the ratios shown here. Too much ash, and the corn dissolves. Not enough, and the corn won’t swell and soften properly.

Kermit Lohry I have garden level seed quantities, but not really poundage. I didn’t grow any, last year. I run a rotation of that, blue, and Oaxacan green.

@@radicalgastronomy No worries. I have about 20 pounds each of blue, 0axacan green and yellow, but getting low on the Hopi Pink. Hopefully someone will grow it around Boulder this year. I really like the Pink for corn bread. This is my first attempt at wood ash nixtamalization.

Kermit Lohry Try Masa Seed Foundation. I’m sure Rich has a bunch. 😉👍🌽

@@radicalgastronomy Thanks. That's where I originally got all my heirloom corn (Abbodanza). I used to do electrical work for Rich and I saw him at the Farmers Market last spring with the new Masa Seed

Kermit Lohry He is the source of my seed, originally.

I've heard that pine ash has too much tar to be useful as lye.

Corn can be separated either in space, or time. I'd have a minimum 500 feet to assure no cross polination of seed stock, but you can plant them right next to each other as long as they are not flowering at the same time. the pollen window is only about 10 days, in most varieties. if you know days to flower for your varieties, you can stagger your plantings accordingly. Personally, I grow one variety per year, and rotate between three or four types.

Pine will work, but you must used more ash, and concentrate the lye water through reduction (boiling it down to increase the strength). I have never done this, so can't offer measurements. Let me know if you give it a shot.

Interesting. Stainless shouldn’t react. The high pH could effect a strip designed to test drinking water, but we would need to know more about how the strips work.

@@susannehager1092 Thanks! Hardwood is preferred, but if all you have is pine it will work. Just use a third more ash.

@@radicalgastronomy Thank you very much from Germany for your quick answer. I wish you all the best!

@@susannehager1092 Gern geschehen. Viel Glück!

Charcoal ash may work, but I haven’t tried it. In theory, charcoal is just wood that is not done burning, so it’s ash should have the same alkaline properties ash while wood ash. If you try it, let me know how it goes!

@@radicalgastronomy ill give it a go. im just trying to make nachos so will be frying the tortillas. İ wonder if this nixtamalization method has any benefit to the taste for nachos... for tortillas they make they more elastic...

@@ftmhlcv4645 the flavor is superior, with this method. I’m sure they will be exceptional nachos.

I would NOT. You have any idea all the additives in your store-bought charcoal? Yuck!

Bass Droppah it makes it more earthy, and more corny. Not so much smokey.

I have not tried this with popcorn. If you try it, reduce the simmering time, as popcorn kernels are much smaller than field corn.

@@radicalgastronomy thank you for the reply!! I will try it and let you know! Thanks

There is really no comparison. Wood ash processing makes corn taste like you always wished it would.

Stainless is unharmed by the process.