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Grits are small broken
grains of corn. They were first produced by
Native Americans centuries ago. They made both
"corn" grits and "hominy" grits. Falls Mill
produces "corn" grits.
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Corn Grits
Falls Mill mills locally grown whole white hybrid
corn. The corn is dried to a 14% moisture content,
then each kernel is cleaned with forced air. The
kernels of grain are run through the mill stone
where they are ground to a certain texture and then
sifted through two wire mesh screens. The three
products sorted are white corn meal, white corn
grits and the bran that pops off. There is a fine
bran still in the grits product. This bran will
never soften up with cooking. Depending on personal
preference, the bran can be left in or removed by
rinsing the grits before cooking. Yummy!
Hominy
Is made from field corn that is soaked in lye water
(potash water in the old days) and stirred over the
next day or two until the entire shell or bran
comes loose and rises to the top. The kernel itself
swells to twice its original size. After the
remaining kernels have been rinsed several times,
they are spread to dry either on cloth or screen
dryers.
How Corn Grits are made at Falls Mill
The first step in the production of our whole corn
grits is the purchase of hybrid white corn from a
local farmer. We pull a small grain wagon to his
storage bin and auger out about 125 bushels of corn
at a time. We weigh the corn and then bring it to
the mill for unloading and cleaning. We auger it
from the wagon into the mill building, where it is
deposited in a floor bin. An elevator, running off
our water wheel, picks up the corn a bucket at a
time and carries it to the second floor grain
cleaner. The cleaner has two shaker screens and a
bottom blast fan, which operate to remove stalk,
cob, unwanted seeds, cockleburs, and other field
trash from the corn. The cleaned corn then drops
into a basement auger, which moves it to a second
elevator, where it is again carried upstairs and
may be conveyed to one of four grain storage bins
(usually the grinding bin above the millstones). It
takes about five hours for us to unload and clean
the 125 bushels.
When ready to mill, we belt up the millstones, fan
suction system, and grits separator, and step up
the speed of the water wheel, which drives all the
machinery through a series of gears, flats belts,
line shafts, and pulleys. The millstones we use are
a set of 42-inch horizontal granite buhrs
manufactured by the R.D. Cole Company of Newnan,
Georgia, around the turn of the century. The
granite was quarried at the Esopus Quarry in New
York state. The millstones rotate about 125
revolutions per minute, and the upper (runner)
stone weighs more than 1,500 pounds. Corn is fed
into the stones via the hopper and shoe, from the
upstairs storage bin. The stones are separated
wider than when milling pure corn meal to obtain a
coarser product. However, the milled product is a
mixture of cracked corn, grits, and corn meal, so
must be separated in a sifter (grits separator). As
it comes off the stones, it falls into a pipe where
the fan suction carries it to the second floor and
drops it into the sifter. The corn meal is first
sifted through a #20 screen and drops into a
bagging bin on the first floor. The coarser product
travels over this screen and grits drop through a
#12 screen next, into a second bin below. The
cracked corn tails off the end of the sifting drum
and we regrind it to obtain more grits. The final
yield is roughly 55% corn meal, 40% grits, and 5%
light bran. The grits, however, will still contain
a little bran or chaff. This is usually skimmed off
prior to cooking.
No lye products are used in the processing of Falls
Mill's grits.
John and Jane Lovett, Owners, Falls Mill &
Country Store, 1873 |
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