Growing Corn

[hjubm2]

Anyone grow their own corn to use in their spirits? I've been trying to get hold of some viable Bloody Butchers Corn to grow a patch this year (no luck so far) to use in a corn moonshine. From last years crop (different type of Indian corn) I'm looking to plant between 150-200 plants, should give me about 30kg or so corn to use.

[bluc]

How much space would that take up. Just curious. I was thinking of doing this just last night. Same breed.

[hjubm2]

I'm planning on about a 30cm spacing between plants/rows so from the average weight last year of the kernels I'd need about 120 plants (so 150+ to be sure). From my rough maths with a 30cm spacing it would be about 9 plants per square meter so say 17 square meters for 150 plants. Planning to do a 10m x 4 or 5m bed for this so should have plenty of room for it.

Just have to find the seeds now, all the Bloody Butcher Corn I've tried didn't sprout last year.

[bluc]

Be very interested to hear results if you get it done. I have heard it has a stronger flavour then the normal corn we use.
Big fan of white all grain corn :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[hjubm2]

Well it's that time of the year now, the nights are starting to get warmer in the Barossa Valley and the frosts are disappearing so time to start looking to plant the corn. Built up a new garden bed for it that's about 10m by 5m, should be good for about 260 plants. Hoping to get 200g of kernels off each plant which will give me around 50kg. That's the aim anyway, a lot can happen between planting the seeds & harvesting the corn.

I have not been able to find viable Bloody Butcher Corn in Australia so instead I will be going with Hopi Blue Corn. It's meant to have a sweeter/nuttier flavour so should be good in a bourbon or straight corn whiskey. Now just need to wait for the irrigation supplys to get here & we'll be all good.

Then I have to work out how I want to use it... maybe a good excuse to finally get the malting machine built ready for some malted Hopi Blue Corn...

[atec77]

Sounds like it will be fun , however you don't need to shuck the ears , I have a small branch mulcher which makes short work of the whole thing, it's all corn and heaps faster :)
Good luck and do post the resullts

[bluc]

Atec77 Does the cob change the flavour?

[hjubm2]

Atec77 Does the cob change the flavour?

I'm interested in this as well & how it effects the sugar level eg if you use 1kg of kernels how much do you use of the whole cobs to get the same SG? I'm assuming the only usable sugar is in the kernels so weight wise you would need to add a fair bit extra if using the whole cobs.

[RuddyCrazy]

an interesting exercise would be to chuck the full cournal into a bucket of water and use a paint mixer, this would remove the corn then transfer the cobs to another bucket and check the brix of each bucket after.

[The Stig]

Didn’t they use a wood chipper on moonshiners and chomped the entire ear , cob and all for their mash ?
Apparently the cob holds just as much starch

[atec77]

Atec77 Does the cob change the flavour?

I can't say it does to my pallate

[bluc]

Nice How bout volume? Does it increase?

[Wellsy]

Yes they did Stig but apparently you can’t believe absolutely everything you see on that show lol

[The Stig]

I know that Wellsy , but something about that just rang true with me :ugeek:

[Wellsy]

Absolutely mate, I have picked up different ideas from them.

[hjubm2]

Well the corn looks just about ready to pick. I've been letting it dry on the plants to get as much into the cobs as possible so in the next few days I'll look to pick & dehusk them all. Hasn't been the best year for it & some of the plants didn't get pollinated properly but should still give a half decent size harvest, enough for a batch of bourbon or similar anyway.

[bluc]

Nice. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[chipboy]

Inspirational actually, once retired I will do likewise, only issue is keeping pests out of them. Nice work.

[hjubm2]

Inspirational actually, once retired I will do likewise, only issue is keeping pests out of them. Nice work.

Luckily I don't have any problems here with corn & pests (the problematic ones go into the hydropinic shadehouse/greenhouse) so it makes it easy & have it setup with drip tape so all i have to do is turn the water on according to what the Et0/Kc of whatever I'm growning does. Makes it really easy. Every hour of watering represents about 8mm of water so from that it takes bugger all work once planted. Could even have it all automated if I wanted to... so I guess thats the long way of saying don't wait till your retired to grow some great corn...

Thinking next year I might look at doubling (or more) the size of the crop... can never have too much corn haha