Adventures in Nixtamalization

[oxbowfarm]

So, I have these corns that I like to grow, and a desire to turn them into a more active part of my family's diet. We have a Country Living grain mill, and we make cornmeal fairly regularly. But until recently we've never gone in for nixtamalization or trying to turn these corns into more authentic American cuisine. I took the plunge and purchased a hand crank masa grinder of the Victoria/Estrella/Corona type and we've begun experimenting with making nixtamal/hominy and turning it into tortillas, posole, and tamales etc.

For such a basic process that has gone on for thousands of years, I find that not a lot of really definitive practical information about how to go about this is available in English. There are a number of "recipes" for nixtamalizing corn or making tortillas, but after playing with them I've discovered that there is a lot of misinformation contained within them. We are involved in the process of de-mystifying nixtamalization and figuring out how to make it produce a consistent product from our corn.

I'm mostly talking about tortillas here, posole and tamale dough are pretty straightforward. Getting a tortilla with good texture and flexibility is the holy grail here. We've been making them, and we are getting closer, but nowhere near where I'd like them to be other than in terms of flavor. The flavor of homemade tortillas from homemade nixtamal is truly fantastic. Even a numbskull like me who has very limited ability to detect nuances of flavor, it is obvious you are eating something on another level flavor-wise.

A few pics of our operations so far.







Some facts we've discovered so far

• Different varieties nixtamalize differently, most of the recipes tell you to boil the corn for a specific time to break down the pericarp, IGNORE! IGNORE!, Watch them the first time and figure out how long YOUR corn is going to take.
• Red pericarp appears to be much more resistant to breakdown than clear. In a pot of mixed color pericarp from the SAME VARIETY GROWN IN THE SAME FIELD, the red pericarps will not be slipping while some of the clear pericarps will be completely disolved and the kernels will actually start to split and cook (which ruins them for masa dough) Separation of colors seems in order for even nixtamalization. Will experiment more with this to confirm in other corn, I've only noticed this in my Oxbow Flint.
• You can make tortillas out of flour corn, and flint corn. I've seen several blogs claim that only dent corn can be made into tortilla masa dough. FALSE!
  

There's still a lot of things to know about making good tortillas.  I'm posting a really nice video I found of a guy who's clearly done some great trial and error experimentation after seeing the real thing done in Nicaragua.  I consider the tortillas he's producing to be the holy grail of a corn tortilla.  I want to make tortillas like his from the corn I grow.

[maicerochico]

That video had me drooling while I watched it. lol.

[steev]

Buen provecho!

[blueadzuki]

what are you using as you alkali? Pickling lime? Food grade lye?

[oxbowfarm]

Pickling lime, I have small children so I wouldn't feel comfortable having lye in the kitchen ( or anywhere in the house). Plus using pickling lime or wood ash adds Calcium or Potassium to the corn, vs Sodium. I'm planning on using wood ash fairly soon, but the pickling lime is easy for now.

P.S. Plus, pickling lime is "cal" (slaked lime) which is pretty commonly used for nixtamalizing in Mexico. I've read in at least one place that "cal" is quicklime, but that seems insane. Why use quicklime when slaked lime works? So much safer.

[blueadzuki]

That much I can answer. The stronger the alkali, the faster the nixamization goes. Wood ashes often require cooking the corn ALL DAY before the pericarps slip off if you are doing a fairy large amount. In contrast lye can often do the same amount in minutes. That's why most industrial masa makers use lye, they are nixamitzing MASSIVE amounts of corn at a tine and need to get it done quickly. Quicklime is stronger than slaked lime so it works faster.

And I should point out not all lye solutions are dangerously strong . Prezel wash is lye. Heck I have a bottle of lye water on the shelf (you need it for some Chinese noodle dishes) .

[oxbowfarm]

pH is pH, it doesn't matter what chemical you are using. I will agree that the higher the pH, the faster in general the pericarp will get digested, but an alkaline solution made from wood ash vs slaked lime at the same pH is going to degrade the pericarp at an identical rate given the same temperature. It just takes about 3 times more ashes by volume to do this than slaked lime. But you end up with the identical total concentration of hydroxide in solution. For myself, I'd rather use a larger amount of a relatively safe chemical like slaked lime or wood ashes than have quicklime or lye kicking around. Two tablespoons of pickling lime and 15 minutes of simmering gets the pericarp off my flour corn, so I don't see the need to cut that time lower at all.


I'd also say, from my own reading, there is more to nixtamalization than pH, there are also the protein modifications via bonding with alkali metal ions. I'd be very interested to know how sodium bonds with corn proteins as compared to potassium and calcium.

As far as the industrial masa makers, there is only one real player in that business, Grupo Maseca. From what I've read Grupo Maseca doesn't use alkaline processing any more, they have some kind of proprietary enzymatic process they've switched to for nixtamalization, no doubt its more cost effective at their scale.

[steev]

"pH is pH", spoken like a chemist! I like the whole process of heating with wood, saving the ash, using it to nixtamalize corn or to check the skin of fruit for drying, and dumping the spent solution/waste on acid compostables like oak leaves, conifer needles, or redwood duff, to speed their breakdown.

[flowerweaver]

Definitely glad you are working all this out Ox, and sharing your findings, as our goal in growing corn is also mainly for producing tortillas and tamales. The video was very helpful, I'm ready to try it!

[oxbowfarm]

Nixtamalized White Flour Grex


Nixtamalized Cateto Sulino


Nixtamalized Coroico


There definitely seems to be some factor in red pigmented pericarp that interferes with the alkaline breakdown. Red pericarps take approximately twice as long to process to a point where the pericarp will slip off, and even at that point, they are much more stringy and in larger, firmer pieces.

[steev]

They all look great; started me thinking of posole stews and then then to grinding it just to nubbins, to add to bread or biscuits.

[oxbowfarm]

Here's a picture of my flint corn after nixtamalization but before I've worked the pericarp off. This was a batch of mixed color corn, in the future I'll avoid mixing things like this due to differences in processing time. All I've done with the corn in this pic is pour it into the colander and rinse it off. This was sufficient to clean the pericarp off of some of the clear pericarp kernels on the surface.



Here's the pericarp from the red kernels as I work it off. The clear pericarp does not act like this, it dissolves much more completely into a fuzzy slime and rubs off and rinses away very very easily.


Here's the cleaned, nixtamalized flint corn. Still a lot more pericarp in there than in any of the other corns I've nixtamalized, but this after about 15 minutes of working it over in multiple changes of water.


From my own limited experience, I'd have to say that clear pericarp is much easier to process into hominy/nixtamal than red pericarp using this method. I'm definitely interested in finding out more about what types of corn are typically nixtamalized for tortillas in Mexico and other parts of Central America. What makes a good tortilla corn? This information is not readily available as far as I can tell, at least not in English. Races of Maize in Mexico describes Mexican corn races but has very little information about traditional culinary uses. Food blogs etc are written by non-agricultural types for the most part, and contain an enormous amount of mis-information.

[jondear]

I'm curious if the different colors impart a noticeable difference in flavor of the finished product... I'm thinking of playing with dry corn next year. I have Abnaki Rose (a flint) and Hopi Blue flour.

[steev]

Might help clean off the pericarp if you had more rings.

[blueadzuki]

Or maybe those rough gloves they sell on tv for peeling potatoes.