The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Milling Corn (Maize)

charbono's picture
charbono

Milling Corn (Maize)

I’ve come across the best reference I’ve seen for milled corn cooking and whole corn parching, and it’s in an unlikely place: Carol Deppe’s The Resilient Gardener, 2010.  She emphasizes that flour corns and flint corns are best in different applications.  Ideally one would use one or the other, not dent (a flour/flint cross).  However, she admits that certain dent corn can make a decent cornbread.  Unfortunately, my flour and flint corn options are not good.

 

Milling dent corn presents a challenge.  The endosperm of dent has a hard, flinty, horny, or vitreous part and a soft, floury, mealy, or opaque part.  On average, about 55% of dent corn endosperm is flinty and about 45% is floury.  The flinty part is higher in amylose and protein than the floury part, and the parts have different granular structures.  Floury endosperm is always white.  Not surprisingly, these two parts have different chemical, textural, and cooking qualities.  Even at the same granulation, the hard endosperm takes more time or heat to swell with water.

 

If one could separate the flinty endosperm from the floury endosperm of dent corn, one would have two basic products, instead of a jumble.  Because the floury endosperm breaks more easily, simple granulation classification using sieves will accomplish the separation to some extent.  However, the separation can be improved by sieving an initial, coarse break(s), as mentioned in this commercial website:

 http://www.bealldeg.com/introraw.html.  Beall calls flour from flinty endosperm “sharp”.  Beall’s info is virtually identical to that in Matz’s Cereal Technology, 1970.

 

With dent, I proceed as follows:  Coarsely mill the corn.  Sieve in the following order:  #20 and #11.  (Sieving is fastest using the finest mesh first.)  I now have a very pale yellow floury meal fraction, about 25% of the starting grain.   The floury fraction is suitable for pancakes and cornbread.  If an initial, fine (say through #50) fraction was separated, it is particularly suitable for cookies, cakes, coatings, and gravy.  I also have about 25% flinty grits and about 50% “overs” retained on #11.

 

Switching to a tight setting, I re-mill the “overs”; then sieve the result with #50, #20, and #11.  There should be very little retained on #11 after this second pass.  That which passes #50 is mostly floury and is added to the floury fraction obtained on the first pass.  In addition to the floury fraction, I now have two mostly flinty fractions: a moderately yellow meal passing through #20 and deeper yellow grits passing through #11 but retained on #20.  They include a little white endosperm attached to the yellow flint and some bran.  The flinty meal is suitable for cornbread (with a portion scalded) and particularly suitable for johnnycake.  The grits are suitable for mush/polenta.  (I strain out some floating chaff prior to cooking mush.)  Another sieve can separate a coarser fraction for classic grits.

 

Approximate final results:

 

30% floury meal

20% flinty meal

50% flinty grits

 

Both meals pass a #20 mesh, but the textural difference can be felt.

Nickisafoodie's picture
Nickisafoodie

I buy organic dent corn from the health food store in 25 lb bags.  I have a high impact Wonder Mill and the resulting flour is very fine, almost like all purpose flour.  And I like the fact that it is 100% whole ground and I get the benefit of the fiber, germ and oil.   This type of fine flour makes great corn muffins/corn bread.   I think the only reason these muffins/corn bread come out very well (without sifting) is due to the impact millbeing able to make a very fine flour.  The fine flour is my preference compared to the more granular types "corn meal" typically available in the stores as you get a softer cake like texture rather than gritty.   A courser grind has not given me nearly the same success.   Not to say that you cant get great results with other types of mills, just sharing my experience.  I am curious as to what type of mill are you using?  Very interesting article, thx for the link...

charbono's picture
charbono

I'm with you in prefering fine-grained corn breads.  However, some like a coarse or gritty texture.

I should have mentioned that I use a plate-type mill, the Retsel Mil-Rite.  For corn, I use the steel burrs.  It generates a range of granulation, suitable for sieving.  It handles dent well, but is not well-suited for flint or large kernels.

 

Crider's picture
Crider

I'm a lover of corn meal but have saved the flour fraction for another time, perhaps I'll some day add vital wheat gluten to it to make a loaf. I have #50, #30 and #20 screens. Once, I ran a test of store-bought corn meal and store-bought grits through my seives and found that the corn meal all went through the #20 but the grits did not. So if I want home-ground grits, I realize I would need to get something like your #11 sieve.

I find that the flour has a weaker aroma and color (and probably taste), so I don't use it in corn meal. We make 'corn bread' (the kind with wheat flour, eggs, sugar, etc.) and I really like how it turns out. I also occasionally make anadama bread and I scald the corn meal for that.

For grits I have, a couple of times, made wet hominy grits from freshly nixtamalized corn. I pass the amount of wet corn I want through a Corona hand mill set rather coarse. It's fabulous. But with the time-consuming nature of nixtamalizing corn, I suppose I haven't done it enough! I usually make tortillas from nixtamalized corn. Have never dried whole hominy corn for later milling. Although the label on Quaker Grits says "hominy", it's actually just plain de-germed ground corn — not nixtamalized. Very bland, doesn't have much flavor. True hominy grits are quite rare, especially out West where I live.

By the way, if you garden, there's a wonderful source of all sorts of heirloom/landrace corn seed called Native Seeds / SEARCH. They also have many old varieties of beans and squash if you want to grow a backyard plot of three sisters New World crops.

charbono's picture
charbono

I have a number of test sieves and strainers with different mesh sizes.  Commercial practice varies, but I separate corn meal from grits with the #20 sieve.  Sieving is one of the more interesting aspects of home milling.

I’ll soon be planting some Mandan Red Flour I got from http://www.sandhillpreservation.com/catalog/corn.html.

I think a lot of people are unhappy with their corn pancakes and johnnycakes.  They don’t realize the difference between floury endosperm and flinty endosperm.   Floury makes good pancakes; flinty makes good johnnycakes.  Vice versa won’t work, and a blend won’t work very well. 

Papist's picture
Papist

I mill blue or red corn.  Do I have to soak it in lime water before using it?  Is it possible to make corn tortillas from homemilled corn?  How about Indian Corn.  My friend told me about this Indian dish and said it is delish.  I have no idea where to start and I am fairly clueless when it comes to milling corn. 

charbono's picture
charbono

You must steep the corn in lime water as the first step in making masa.  You use masa to make tortillas.  All corn is Indian corn.  Some people use the term to indicate non-white, non-yellow flint corn.

 

 

Papist's picture
Papist

So mill the corn, soak in lime water, then drain it as best I can?  Sorry about the confusion, there is a dish called "Indian corn."  I think it is almost like bread.  I can't find much about it on the net, but it is big with the Indians.  Do I also have to soak ground corn in lime water to make grits?  Other than for a few dishes, can I jsut the unsoaked corn or is it best to always soak?  Thanks

charbono's picture
charbono

Lime, or another alkaline material, is used to make hominy, which can be coarsely ground to make hominy grits, or more finely ground to make masa.  Unlike most, I usually add a little lime for flavor and nutrition, when cooking regular grits (mush) or scalding meal for johnnycakes. 

Crider's picture
Crider

You take one pound of dry, whole corn in a large pot. Add six cups of water, and add two tablespoons of 'cal' (slaked lime or calcium hydroxide). Slowly bring to a boil and when it boild, turn off the heat and let it soak for 8 or so hours. Then rinse away the water and pericarp that has loosened. Then grind finely for tortillas or coarsely for grits or tamales.

I once wrote a blog article here about the Corona mill. It refers to a video from Alton Brown on the nixtimalization technique, but the links have vanished, so here are the links again for that show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFn3GKVLHnM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMLLuOvb7hQ

 

 

grain grower's picture
grain grower

Hi Charbono (and all)- I found my way to this group when I was looking up more information on flint corn and nixtamalization. I'd been growing (mostly sweet) corn since forever (1970s or earlier, but I bought Carol Deppe's book in 2014, bought my first seed from her in 2015. started nixtamalizing this summer, and have had enough years of 'bumper' crops that I'm getting serious about using my grains (I grow wheat and spelt also).

In using corn for polenta etc I'm focusing in on taste, texture, and size of the ground material. So when I saw your discussion, it spurred me into an online hunt for sieves  Huge range of prices and mesh. I just took the few strainers I have and compared 'Bob's Red Mill' as a commercial polenta grind, with my nixtamalized '3 sisters' dent (which had ground finer than I liked with my Retsel mill) but cooks up into an excellent fried polenta. I was interested in any recommendations as to brands of sieves- your selection of  #11, and #20 look like a good start for mesh- my strainers on hand were about 1.5mm and 1mm hole size- Bob's passed through the 1.5mm and most of it though the 1mm, 3 sisters passed through both except for a few bits. At this point I'm just using them to see what I've actually managed to get as an end product, and plan to change the setting on my grinder accordingly.

I've got a Wondermill also, and I like it a LOT for flour corn. I tried Carol's recommendation for specifically brown flour corn to make gravy- I'd been sceptical but the results are absolutely stellar- it produces a product that I might almost describe as 'sleek' in texture.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions. lw

jo_en's picture
jo_en

 

Hi,

i worked through  a recipe twice for nixtamal masa fresca con maiz morado.

It was quite a process.

Would you describe the brown flour corn gravy?

grain grower's picture
grain grower

sorry- I just worked through 2 lengthy posts and thought I'd gotten them through successfully but this thing has now twice claimed my answer to the 'captcha' is incorrect. Discouraging- when I next attempt to post I will keep a copy so the work is not wasted. Sending this test post to see if it happens again..

grain grower's picture
grain grower

I guess what it is is that you have to *wait*... for it to *think" about your 'captcha' checkoff, and once you see the *green* checkmark you're good to go.. I will try again in a bit...

grain grower's picture
grain grower

Hi again Joe- I just looked up 'maiz morado'- purple corn- haven't gotten any further than that. I do have 3rd generation 'blue' starting from Jerry (?) blue corn (Fedco seed, I think). It did partition into 'steel blue'. 'blue' and 'dark blue', which I planted separately in 2017. Got a good crop at that point. 

 I neglected it in 2018, but did at that point work on something that was attempting to be a purple corn. I can't remember if it was a '3 sisters' (originally a dent with a lot of 'earthtones' coloration in it that gradually took on some flour characteristics) or if it was from the 'blue' seed (I'll have to look it up later..). That stuff grew to be 10ft tall or so, had a lot of genetic variability, and was absolutely PLUNDERED by rodents and birds. It was an ongoing battle to harvest what I have, and I hope some will germinate well. The ears are a foot long or better, it's quite long season, and I can't tell if it's soft because it's flour corn or because it didn't all fully mature.

   Small Valley Milling is also selling a purple corn that appears to be a dent, which is loaded with anthocyanins. Beautiful stuff to grind and cook

   I'd love to see your recipe.  lw

jo_en's picture
jo_en
grain grower's picture
grain grower

I reviewed the recipe for maiz morado- it is similar to what I follow- with some differences.

My first source of info was a workshop at our local resilience hub- I took notes but it took me a couple of years to get back to it.

I then went looking online, and found a Culinary Institute of America video on Youtube. This is the link; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcan7L4azWc&t=219s .

Her times and amounts are about the same as yours- she doesn't have the 6-8 hour pre-soak. i hadn't tried that previously.

   Based on my product and subsequent research, I changed things a bit. My present  standard recipe is as follows;

 About 2# (or 1kg) dried corn kernels. Wash, pick over as necessary. Put in stainless steel pot with ~1gallon of warmish water- or enough to cover the corn by 1-2 inches.

4Tbsp (1/4c) pickling lime (I buy Mrs. Wage's because they have it locally).Mix with 2c water- best to use room temp water. The warmer the water, the more vapors are evolved. Don't breathe the vapors or the powder. Mix in glass or stainless steel.

Add the lime water to the corn /water in the pot. Heat to a simmer, cook at least 1/2 hour or up to an hour. Turn off and let stand overnight. When ready to process, drain off the limewater. Soak and replace with 1-2 changes of fresh water. Handle the corn carefully- use gloves or check your skin for any sensation of residual lime. You can feel it- and if you chew on the corn before you rinse it well, you can taste it. (You can guess how I found that out.. don't do that..) You want to be working with a product that is close to essentially neutral pH.

Rinse and rub kernels to loosen/remove pericarp. I use a combo of rinsing in a colander and rinsing in a S/S pot or bowl.

A meat grinder works OK to grind the processed kernels, better, IMHO, than a food processor. Grind 3x, starting with the COARSEST plate and progressing to the finest- less wear n tear on the grinder, smoother final product. Add only as much water 'as necessary' to grind. Less water added is better- end product is drier. After the 3rd, finest grind, it should be a fairly compliant dough.


Use fairly promptly after processing. It will start to ferment even in the refrigerator after a few days. Kernels can be dried, and then ground to make masa seca (best with an impact grinder such as the wondermill), or cooked whole fresh or dried. Ground wet masa can be dried. Due to the 'nubbles' (I think technically they call them 'tips', and they cover the germ of the corn) the dried stuff isn't as smooth or easy working as the freshly processed stuff.

Getting a tortilla press was a good thing for me. You can pat them outor roll them out, but..

Tortillas are fair cooked on a griddle, spectacular when deep fried, interesting when baked in a 350-400* oven. You can make biscuits, pancakes etc. Cooking with the whole nixtamalized grain is possible as well- ~= 'hominy', or 'posole'.


***If the ground material is fairly 'dry', it may be crumbly. You can use  2 parts of the 'crumbly' stuff to 1 part of ubw, add a drizzle of olive oil, use baking powder and salt equivalent to that used for biiscuits- can do this only for the flour portion or amp it up to the full batch .Add water only by small bits to get desired consistency. Divide to small ball, roll in  eg ubw flour, press with tortilla press and plastic bags Add the lime water. Heat to a simmer, cook at least 1/2 hour or up to an hour. Turn off and let stand overnight. As described above, rinse and rub kernels to loosen/remove pericarp. A meat grinder works OK to grind the processed kernels. Per recently discovered youtube video, grind 3x, starting with the COARSEST plate and progressing to the finest- less wear n tear on the grinder, smoother final product. Less water added is better- end product is drier.
Use fairly promptly after processing. It will start to ferment even in the refrigerator after a few days. Kernels can be dried, processed mush can be dried. Due to the 'nubbles' the dried stuff isn't as smooth or easy working as the freshly processed stuff. Tortillas are fair cooked on a griddle, spectacular when deep fried, interesting when baked in a 350-400* oven. You can make biscuits, pancakes etc- for this (so far) I add some Bisquik or ubw or spelt flour. Still tweaking the recipe.

***If the ground material is fairly 'dry', it may be crumbly. If you want, you can use2 parts of the 'crumbly' stuff to 1 part of ubw flour, add a drizzle of olive oil, use baking powder and salt equivalent to that used for biscuits- can do this only for the flour portion or amp it up to the full batch. Add water only by small bits to get desired consistency. Divide to small balls, roll in (eg) ubw flour, press with tortilla press and plastic bags.

   I've done dent, flint, and sweet corn this way. I haven't yet tried nixtamalizing flour corn.  lw

 

 

This link seems like a good one as well. I hadn't actually seen it before as I recall..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIs3gjOPevw

grain grower's picture
grain grower

Hi joe_n; trying again on my answer to your question about the gravy. Short version- I started with Painted Mountain flour corn, selected out brown ears specifically. Shelled, ground the kernels with a Wondermill set on 'coarse' (that's what they specify for corn). I followed the basic recipe for 'cream sauce'- 2 tbsp butter melted, 2 Tbsp flour added to make a roux, slowly add 1 cup liquid, stirring to avoid lumps, heat/stir til thickened.

  Long version- So- in actuality, the first time I tried this, I was making chili and didn't have any commercial 'masa seca'- and had used up all my ground nixtamalized corn- but I had a generic mixture of colors of Painted Mountain that I'd ground with my Mil_Rite at what I'd kinda thought was a 'fine' grind- and I just chucked a handful of that into the bubbling chili. I liked what I saw in terms of that- I'd have to call it- fairly 'glossy' appearance and thickening power. So, based on that, I re-read Carol Deppe and sorted out some Pt Mt brown ears specifically. (By then I had the Wondermill, and I think the brown ears were my first flour corn grind with it.)

   The first formal gravy run was either for chicken at Thanksgiving or a beef/deer stew- don't quite remember which. At that point I went with one of 4 possible fats- bacon grease, olive oil, chicken fat, or butter- or some combination (depending on whatever was at hand in the heat of the moment)- and the basic liquid was 2/3 stock, 1/3milk- I don't usually add any other seasoning until later. The volume was scaled up to whatever I'd needed- (depends on how many are eating and what I'm starting with).

I used the same 'roux' technique. Again I was struck by the 'glossiness' and the strength of thickening- I get the impression that the cornflour has a slightly superior thickening capability compared to wheat flour- it's early days for me to really say for sure. 'Mouthfeel' (that is SUCH a bizarre word..) is great, stability of the thickened product is great- so far I don't notice it 'breaking' like you sometimes get with cornstarch, nor 'over-thickening' over time and as it cools- like you can see with wheat flour. Taste was- great- I'm not sure it comes up to what Carol had described, but I like it. I have yet to play around with anything like toasting, parching, or working on bringing out any 'corn-specific' taste.

   Hope that helps. I got your message about the 'nixtamal masa fresca con maiz morado'. I have the wordpress document open and will read it after I post this.

   Thanks again- lw

charbono's picture
charbono

I don't have a recommended brand of test sieve, but a bad experience with a brass-framed ATM Products sieve leads me to suggest stainless steel. The test sieves on ebay seem to have gone up in price. Depending on your expected volume, soil/gravel classifiers or kitchen strainers may be more economical.

 

I am less happy regarding the use of Retsel Mil-Rite steel burrs for grinding maize. They appear to be cast, not machined; and some of the grooves do not taper as they approach the outer edge of the disk. The crude burrs may be good for beans or nuts and are dishwashable, but they generate a wide range of granulation in corn. I recently used the original grain mill attachment for a Hobart-era Kitchenaid K5 and had an epiphany. The attachment has sharp burrs, which generated a relatively narrow range of granulation.

 

The other thing I'm now doing with ground corn is winnowing the coarse fraction several times.

 

 

grain grower's picture
grain grower

Thanks, charbono. I agree on the wide range of granulation. I did recently acquire an (old but good heavy duty) Kitchenaid- hadn't yet looked into the grain grinding option or parts, tho I'd read about them. What I'm doing at present with the Mil-Rite is marking the position to set the plate widths. Based on what I see, I think the plates build up material as the grind goes on- and this somehow affects the resulting particle size (It seems to get finer as the grind progresses) What I did the last time was check frequently, stop and back it off slightly if necessary. (of course, that can lead to an EXTREME change, which is why I'm now marking calibrations. I know when I break it down after grinding, I always have to clean out particles wedged in the grooves.

   I'd also received a pair of 'stone' plates with the grinder, but they seemed to build up material very quickly and I haven't used them after the initial trial.

   Thanks for the recommendations on sieves- I'll give the sieving a shot at least to the point of comparing the cooked products in relation to particle size. I suspect I've come up with a partial solution to the question of how to get a good (almost 'gluey') consistency that gives good cohesion during the setup period as well as good response to cooking- (stays together, doesn't stick to the griddle, browns and crisps up nicely..). My hint was in Carol's recipe for Johnnycake plus a few other recipes for this n that- start with hot- or  even just-off-the-boil- water and add in the ground corn- It seems to activate whatever the characteristics are of corn gluten- and maybe soften the pericarp and/or the flint portion- the sharp bits. If there's a range of smaller particles with at least a good proportion of the larger ones,, it almost gives you an 'instant' nature to the thickening- 

I'm planning on grinding some non-nixtamalized Abenaki Calais flint shortly to trial for polenta etc.- picked it out of stored ears, and shelled it a couple of days ago. Eventually I'll get around to trying some of the Cascade stock. Up until this year, I'd gotten a better yield on Ab Cal than on Cascade- this year it was the reverse, but I suspect it was due to their relative position in (a fairly small) garden plot. Ab Cal got the short end of the stick on fertility, sunlight, pH and moisture- a quadruple hit, unfortunately. I hadn't anticipated that things would vary that radically in the short distance, but the wheat bed growing behind them basically told me the same tale.

Thanks again- lw