Granted it was very low alcohol and their alcohol production technology was not as advanced as Europeans, but it wasn’t entirely absent.
I really want to try making a beer this way, does anyone know where I could get some corn that would be suitable for soaking and sleeping on top of like this? Organic corn seed?
Tom makes a good point that it’s intellectually dangerous to treat “Native American” culture as if it is/was a monolithic culture and ethnicity. It’s like saying “Asian” culture. There are huge differences between Persians and Koreans, and Russians and Indians. It’s incredibly difficult to try to draw meaningful conclusions or opinions based on race/ethnicity without just falling into racism.
The Hohokam (who lived in what’s now Phoenix) brewed a corn alcohol as well. That’s probably where the Apaches got the technique from.
Comparing pre-Columbian alcohol consumption to post-colonial alcohol consumption is like comparing a BB gun to a Howitzer. Yes they’re both guns, but no one would confuse the two.
Tax on alcohol sales on pulque to natives in New Spain (Mexico) generated as much revenue for the crown as the silver mines did, and there were a ton of silver mines. What was once a sacred drink became secular post-invasion and the consumption exploded.
I thought about mentioning this in the other thread but it got locked to soon. Pretty much every culture ever had some form of fermented beverage. not always grain, sometimes honey, fruit, palm sap, maple sap etc. Actually there is a great book sacred and herbal healing beers (brewers association published in fact) that goes deep into this.
Tom,
I would think that any organic dry dent corn would work. you should be able to find something through a food coop or specialty store. it’s the same stuff you would use for making masa from scratch.
Yes, this is what I meant. I don’t want to drink a product made with seed corn that has insecticide or any of the other stuff they might treat them with.
I’ve tried this. Can’t say its good or bad - that’s realtive - but it certainly is different. If you are distilling its call “mash”, or so I’m tole.
I did not use the traditional method of chewing up the grain a spitting it out.
The Europeans get blamed for introducing distilled beverages to the Native Americans but over time it has become alcohol in general. That is how they knew it was something that could be distilled. The N.A.'s had a ready made mash for them.
History taught nowdays doesn’t have anything to do with fact. We are raising a mis-informed generation.
I use feed corn from the feed store. Use field (dent) corn, don’t use sweet corn and DO NOT USE SEED corn.
Corn will sprout. It doesn’t have to be “seed” corn. I agree that seed corn would be treated with fungicide and insecticide. Wouldn’t want you to be eating that either but regular corn harvested from a regular corn field will sprout just fine. It is the fact that it’s a hybrid crop is the only reason it isn’t re-used. Regular corn price today is about $6 per bushel. Seed corn is about $225 per bushel. Feed corn is the same thing. It won’t be treated with anything. Of course, if you’ve got a spare $300 or so, I can get you some pesticide free seed corn…
Another edit: Corn seed is usually harvested about 1/2 milk line which is when the corn is about 1/2 developed. There’s lots of reasons for this but the take home message is that feed corn will be full of starch, seed corn will be 1/2 full at best and ultimately, starch is what you want. I could recommend some higher fermentable and higher extractable starch corn. I won’t, but I could.
Mort, every time I start to like you…
Corn is what I do. Not chemicals. I spend more hours looking at corn, talking about corn, thinking about corn etc than any normal human being should.
Not entirely true … but true to a great extent. And they certainly did not have distilled spirits. I think that the native American Culture was sans alcohol to a great extent, where as European Culture has evolved around it for eons.
That wasn’t pointed at anyone in particular, and certainly not you. I was just pointing out that there are many different people in the world, and small differences to me (as an outsider) might be big differences to the people I’m talking about (whomever they may be).
To me the idea of “chicha” sounds pretty revolting though with some refinements it might not be half bad; the memories of DFH doing one on TV comes to mind.
So we have to malt the corn first? Could we just use some other emzymes?
Sure you COULD just use enzymes, but then why not just ferment corn sugar? Or flaked corn with a pound of 6-row?
I just think it would be cool to do it more traditionally. Although I think I’d boil it so it wouldn’t go all sour and have to be consumed after 12 hours.
