drying popcorn

[loosegoose]

I know this is a premature question but how does everyone dry their pop corn. And when they do dry it how do they know the moisture content it correct. This is my first year at planting popcorn and I can't wait to experiment with it. I'm planting Japanese hull less.

[Dotch]

I've grown popcorn in the past, Japanese hull less, and dried it on drying racks made with finishing nails alternately pounded into the narrow sides of 1" x 2" boards. Furring strips should work well. We hung them in the basement and would check them periodically to see what kind of percentage was popping. It's a little trial and error but ideally, the moisture content should be somewhere in the 14 - 15% range. Once we were comfortable that we had reached that point based on the low number of old maids, we shelled it all off with an old hand crank corn sheller, placed it in ziplock bags and put it in the freezer. Doing this on days when there's a breeze helps blow the beeswings, silks, and other foreign material out of the sample before putting it in storage. Hope this helps.

[waskawood]

We used a moisture tester that the farmers use to test their field corn for moisture. I do not remember the percent of moisture but we shelled it, put it in a big pan, placed it in a warm oven and stirred from time to time util we achieved the proper moisture.

[Juneau4]

Leave on stocks until end of october, mother nature will dry it.

[Dotch]

Waiting until late October in some locations may work fine if you're planting in a small plot, in a sheltered area and your planting date is early. However, from experience, leaving the corn out there that long you may be picking it up out of the mud and/or snow and have to dry it inside anyway. Stalk quality can become compromised, both from a stalk rot and corn borer standpoint particularly if the weather (wind, precipitation) becomes a factor. Moisture testers work if they're set up properly to measure popcorn. The elevator where I once worked had a special module that could be plugged in to test it. Some of the hand held moisture testers will tell you in the instruction manual how to either cross reference the reading on the display or give you a chart so the %-age should be correct. The foolproof way to know though is still to pop it and see.

[Juneau4]

2 rows a quarter mile long? Lets not make growing popcorn complicated, plant, grow, let it dry in field, pop,eat with favorite bev. (I like milk with mine) it's rather easy.

[Dotch]

Whatever you say j4. Have fun with your project loosegoose!

[loosegoose]

Thanks for the input, I'm looking forward to gardening.