DIY Popcorn

Yet another thing you can 'do yourself': popcorn!

Every couple of years I buy a packet of popcorn 'seed' and plant a little patch of popcorn.  Why not just save my own seed?  Well, because I don't put my popcorn patch far enough away from my sweet corn patch to avoid cross-pollination.

Anyway, I grow a little block of popcorn, let it stand in the garden until the kernels are hard and dry (say sometime in October, when the farmers are harvesting their ear corn), then I pull the ears from the stalks and bring them in the house.

I finally got around to 'shelling' my popcorn the other day.  About a 1/3 bushel of 'Japanese hull-less', and a few dozen ears of the small 'strawberry' popcorn. 
  
                                

strawberry popcorn, obviously named for it's resemblance to the red fruit

a "big" ear of strawberry popcorn, with deck of cards for size comparison

Shelling it isn't hard to do, although it does make your hands kind of sore and I recommend wearing gloves.  Pretty much just wrap your hand around the ear of popcorn and twist.  Once you get some of the kernels loosened up enough to fall off, the rest can be rubbed/twisted off.  Of course, you could buy a little gadget called a corn sheller to do this, but I all ready own hands and carry them with me whereever I go.  :0)

Make sure you do the shelling over a bowl or other receptacle with a wide mouth. 

the 'Japanese hull-less' all shelled out

 Now you just need a nice breezy day to take your popcorn outside and winnow the chaff out of it.  Take a couple large bowls, go outside, and pour the popcorn back and forth between the bowls until no more debris flies away in the breeze.

At the end of shelling, and winnowing, I have organically grown, locally raised popcorn, LOL.

I do have to say that there is a factor I haven't messed with much so far, and that is the moisture content of the popcorn at harvest time.  It does affect how light and fluffy your popcorn pops out to when you make it.  So far, my white popcorn always is a bit starchy and tough.  I really need to learn more about this moisture thing as I'm the only one in the family who doesn't mind the more toothsome popcorn we grow.  Everyone else wants soft fluffy stuff.

The strawberry popcorn, however, came out pretty close to what you expect popcorn to be like.  And it has a pretty red color in the centers of the popped corn too.