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Post by hmoosek on Nov 12, 2022 22:27:44 GMT -6
How cool!!! Keep me updated as I’d like to know how well the pop.
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Post by woodeye on Nov 12, 2022 23:19:39 GMT -6
Way to go, chrysanthemum, you got it done and the kernels look great!
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Nov 13, 2022 16:26:41 GMT -6
I've read that the 'pop' potential of popcorn depends on the moisture content of the kernel. I probably ruined mine by hanging the dried ears on either side of our door lentils with the woodstove burning in November. I've never tried rehydrating any of the kernels before though. That might work. Sounds like a good science experiment to me.
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Post by hmoosek on Nov 13, 2022 17:15:22 GMT -6
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Post by chrysanthemum on Nov 14, 2022 21:41:22 GMT -6
hmoosek, I was heating up a skillet of oil tonight for frying Seminole Pumpkin, and I decided to test several kernels of the Glass Gem. I put in six kernels, did not put a lid on the skillet, went to put the jar of popcorn away and by the time I got back to the skillet, one kernel had disappeared. I assume it popped itself right out of the pan, but I didn’t find it on the counter or the floor. Strange. I hope that means it was a good pop, but I don’t know. A couple other kernels popped but only in the sense of breaking their hulls and showing a little white, not a full-blown-turn-inside-out piece of popcorn. One kernel didn’t pop at all, and one turned into quite a respectable piece of popcorn. I was the one who got to eat that (with a sprinkle of salt), and it tasted good. I understand that popcorn can fail to pop if it’s too wet or if it’s too dry. Hmm. That’s a problem. I don’t know which it is. Given our weather, though, I’m going to guess too dry. I’m going to sprinkle some water in the jar when I think of it (just a very little water) and rehydrate the kernels a bit and try again when I have some hot oil. I’ll keep you posted. (And if I can’t seem to get popping to work, I’ll grind it into funny-colored cornmeal. I’ve read that the combination of colors turns kind of gray when put together. Perhaps not the most appealing for one’s food, so I’ll try popping first.)
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Post by hmoosek on Nov 15, 2022 1:15:51 GMT -6
Thank you for the update chrysanthemum. I’ve been wondering about how it would pop. I wonder if certain varieties of popcorn are better at popping than others. I just bought a big bag of popcorn and it is the stalest tasting stuff I’ve ever tried to eat. No amount of butter seems to makes it better. It wasnt the cheapest or the most expensive.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Nov 18, 2022 21:14:15 GMT -6
hmoosek , I’m sorry to hear about your stale tasting popcorn. I’m not sure what to make of that. We decided to have a popcorn snack today before our lunch, and so I tried five kernels of Glass Gem Corn in the oil first. The sizzled and hissed and even spun in circles, but they did not pop. It was definitely a worse result than before. This was after I had added one teaspoon (really I measured out one teaspoon) to my jar of seeds and shook it from time to time for a day or two. Did adding water to the popcorn make it too wet? Was it really too wet before rather than too dry? How do I test? I’ll tell you that I had read an article that suggested some ways to test popcorn. One involved a moisture meter for wood, and we own one, but I was pretty skeptical about that. Another involved purchasing something, and that I had no desire to do. Here’s the article for anyone who’s interested because it does have some good information and pictures. (It’s by the same colorful author as one article on our luffa thread, but the language is more restrained in this one.) www.theartofdoingstuff.com/why-popcorn-sometimes-doesnt-pop/I had the hot oil, I had out the bag of store-bought popcorn that popped just fine, and our moisture meter was easily accessible. I gave her method a try. Our storebought popcorn read 15% when I stuck one kernel on each pin, and then held my palm pressed against the kernels. (Was the palm pressing creating conductivity or something to make this system at least give a reading, even if not an accurate one, woodeye, heavyhitterokra? I’m no expert on anything electrical or on moisture meters, but I’d love some input from you guys on this because I would love to have a better clue about what is going on here.) I tested my Glass Gem Corn, and it came out at 19%. Maybe my corn really was too wet to begin with, and then I just made it worse. The little jar of corn is now open and sitting on the mantel above our woodstove. I may have to do some periodic testing with the moisture meter. I might really have gone off the deep end at this point, but I worked so hard to grow those little ears of corn. I want to make the most of my harvest. (Our storebought popcorn tasted just fine, though, with butter and salt. The weirdest thing, though, is that my six year old does not like popcorn. He was willing to give Glass Gem Corn a try, but we haven’t been able to let him test it yet. I just don’t understand not liking popcorn, though.)
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Post by hmoosek on Nov 18, 2022 21:48:22 GMT -6
chrysanthemumI’m not sure about adding water. I would be afraid of mold. I know nothing about how to use a moisture meter either. I’m not sure why my popcorn was stale. I bought a new fangled microwave glass bowl made just for popcorn popping. I tried it both ways with and without oil. It could be the gadget as I have triee it in a skillet.
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Post by woodeye on Nov 18, 2022 22:06:49 GMT -6
chrysanthemum , I have to readily admit that I have never heard of testing popcorn for moisture content. But according the article, the store-bought popcorn that you tested at 15% would be your baseline reading. And since you already know that the store-bought popcorn popped fine, you will need to try to dry your home-grown popcorn down to 15%. The article does say that it was a newly opened jar of Orville's that was used for the baseline for the tests, and I don't know if your store-bought popcorn was out of a freshly opened jar, or out of a plastic bag or whatever, but it did pop okay, so I would just try to get the home-grown down to 15%. And please don't stab yourself with the moisture meter points, I have done that accidently.
When I was running a wood kiln, It consisted of an insulated plywood box that was 10 feet long and 4 feet square. I had to build it, and it had a removeable door on the front. When starting a new load of wood to dry, I would drive 2 nails in the sides of one of the planks that was inside the kiln. I put alligator clips on 2 wires and ran them through a small hole on the end of the kiln. There were 2 more alligator clips on the ends of the wires outside the kiln. I clipped those to the moisture meter, and I could monitor the dryness of the planks that way. It worked very well, but I'm sure the accuracy of moisture meters depends on the quality of the moisture meter. For everything I did with drying planks, the moisture meter worked great. The planks that I dried were much better than the planks that I got back from a sawmill in Ripley, OK. I hauled the logs up there, he sawed them and dried them. I got back a lot of lumber was half dried and I had to air dry it for months before I could use it. That is why I built my own sawmill and kiln.
In conclusion, I have never used a wood moisture meter for anything except wood. I'm sure that if I wanted to test popcorn, I would first test dried wood that has been inside out of the weather to see what the meter reads. If the reading is reasonable for the wood, 6-8%, I see no reason that it would not work on other items. If you are thinking that perhaps the moisture of your hand caused an inaccurate reading, you would wear gloves, or just put 2 kernels on a table and test them that way. Plus, that would reduce the likelihood that our resident madam scientist stabs herself while testing popcorn...
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Post by chrysanthemum on Nov 19, 2022 8:17:15 GMT -6
Thanks for the input, woodeye. Our moisture meter is nothing fancy, but it seems to be fairly accurate. A careful touch to my palm yields about 30 percent, and our wood down here does dry down to the single digits. We’ve never used it for testing lumber. We got it for firewood years ago when we lived in Virginia and were getting started heating our house with wood. There were many different species there with different drying times, and it helped us learn what was ready for our stove and what was not without actually having to burn a load of still “wet” wood to learn. It’s an inexpensive pin meter, but it works for our purposes. Up until yesterday I had never used it for testing anything but firewood, and I really don’t quite understand the popcorn thing since I thought that the meter measures electrical resistance or conductivity (I’m so clueless about electricity) across a substance. Two separate kernels would seem to be impossible to measure, and indeed there was no reading when I pressed the kernels on those pins (and yes, those things are sharp) and held them up. There was also no reading on my countertop. There was a reading when I put my palm there, though, so I’m wondering if my hand somehow bridged the two kernels and made a current that allowed the meter to take a reading even if it’s not necessarily an accurate one. My storebought popcorn was not super fresh but also not super old. It was just a grocery store brand of organic kernels, and it’s stored in a resealable plastic pouch. I figured that since it pops quite readily that it does make sense to use that 15% reading as a baseline and try to get my Glass Gem Corn to match. I will be careful about those pins. I haven’t stabbed myself yet, but they are sharp, and the kernels are small.
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Post by woodeye on Nov 19, 2022 13:10:30 GMT -6
chrysanthemum, I have confidence in your abilities at most everything you set your mind to, so I have no doubts as to whether you will get it figured out.
I agree, the moisture in the kernels helps lower the resistance and gives a higher reading if the kernel has more moisture. The dryer the kernel is, the higher the resistance is, therefore the reading on the meter is lower.
That's how measuring the moisture of wood works. The higher the moisture of the wood, the less the resistance is, and the moisture meter will give a higher reading. The lower the moisture of the wood, the more the resistance is, and the moisture meter will give a lower reading.
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Post by macmex on Nov 19, 2022 20:04:59 GMT -6
Have you read testimony from anyone who has used Glass Gem for popping? I wonder if perhaps it just isn't that well suited for popping. I know Mesquakie Indian has a lot of flint type kernels and a few will pop, but not enough for me to think of using it that way.
If it doesn't pop, I'm sure it would make wonderful cornmeal.
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Post by hmoosek on Nov 20, 2022 17:59:12 GMT -6
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Post by chrysanthemum on Nov 20, 2022 20:18:23 GMT -6
Hmm, I just read about parched corn, hmoosek. Thanks for that idea, but I’m not sure it would go over well in my family. I’m more likely to do cornmeal as macmex suggests. That had actually been my original intent in growing it, but when I got such a small harvest of kernels, I wasn’t sure that there was much I could make out of just the amount of meal that they would make. I have seen some reports of success with people popping Glass Gem, but I think the right moisture content is pretty critical. Is there any similar moisture content requirement for knowing when to grind cornmeal? I wouldn’t want to mess that up by grinding when the corn is too wet. It sure seems dry to me, but the whole point of the last few posts is that I really haven’t a clue.
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Post by macmex on Nov 21, 2022 6:27:14 GMT -6
If you have a grinder which is only marginally able to grind corn, then spread the kernels on a cookie tray and toast them briefly, in the oven. Then grind. Otherwise I just drop them in my hand crank tortilla mill and make cornmeal.
Here's a link to the first mill Jerreth and I purchased, back in 1981. It's only about $6 more expensive now, than it was, which is probably due to competition. Back then, this was basically the only one a person could find, mail order.
Corona Corn and Grain Mill
These hand cranked mills are fine for cornmeal and grits. They're marginal for grinding wheat flour, as it's difficult to get a fine enough grind.
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