hist-brewing: Corn?

[Billy Page]

>From: NeophyteSG at aol.com
>To: hist-brewing at pbm.com
>Subject: Re: hist-brewing: Corn?
>Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 08:47:57 EDT
>
>In a message dated 6/20/00 8:57:50 PM Pacific Daylight Time, Owenbrau 
>writes:
>
> >  Maize, being a New World grain, didn't enter into other cultures' 
>brewing
> > until much later. On the other hand, I'm not sure I want to get a group 
>of
> > women together, so they can chew it up and spit the pulp into the 
>brewpot (
> > really).
> >
> >  Owen
>
>In a message dated 6/20/00 4:39:10 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
>crawley at worldchat.com writes:
>
> > The only one I am familiar with off the top of my head is a not very
> >  apetizing recipe from south america (remember corn came from the
> >  americas so its period use would have been limited to the very later
> >  periods of SCA time at best) Aparently good ole Chris Columbus wrote of
> >  finding the Native population enjoying a fermented beverage made of 
>corn
> >  that was called Chica. The Icky part by modern standards comes in right
> >  at the start of the process. The women of the tribe would gather
> >  together to make the brew and the first step involved them masticating
> >  (that means chewing folks) the corn into a paste and then spitting this
> >  glop into a communal bowl until they had enough to make a brew.This was
> >  then set aside to let nature do its thing and a few days or weeks later
> >  the tribe gathered to enjoy the brew. Yeeeeuuucccckkk .......
>
>Yeah, I knew about Chica ... just read about it a while back ... uh, no
>thanks! :)  That was kinda what prompted me to ask.  However, had I thought
>about maize being an Americas thing ... doah!  I did run across a recipe 
>for
>"beer" produced from fermenting the juice squeezed from corn stalks, 
>though.
>It, blessedly, didn't involve bodily fluids other than the sweat to crush 
>the
>stalks!
>
>
>In a message dated 6/20/00 2:23:44 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
>NTMOORE at SMTPGATE.DPHE.STATE.CO.US writes:
>
> >  "Transformation of Starch, etc.
> >
> >       Under the influence of acids, or diastare, a principle existing in
> > germinating grains, starch is changed first into gum (dextrine) and
> > afterwards into grape sugar. Hence one of our most important sources of
> > alcohol is to be found in the starch of barley, CORN, wheat, potatoes, 
>etc.
> > Wood may be converted into grape sugar by the action of strong sulphuric
>acid
> > which is afterwards neutralized. An attempt to produce alcohol in this 
>way
>on
> > a commercial scale was made in France, but was not successful."
> >
> >  Nate
>
>Nate's actually getting closer to what I was really wondering.  The starch 
>in
>barley is converted to sugar by germinating, yes?  Has this method been 
>used
>with corn?  How did moonshiners convert it?  Same process?  I just can't 
>see
>them all sitting
>around spitting into the mash ... to quote Percival's eloquent exclamation,
>"Yeeeeuuucccckkk!" :)
>
>Warm Regards,
>Shawn
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------Moonshiners 
>soaked the corn overnight, then spread it out , covered with wet sacks, 
>left in a warm area and it would sprout, once it was well sprouted its 
>dried then ground. this is how they made malt. they would then boil ground 
>corn or coarse corn meal. after boiling they would let it cool. spread the 
>malt on top in a thick layer and in a week or so assuming warm weather it 
>would be "still beer". This is what they distilled. But its pretty good and 
>many people drank this.
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