This summer past, I grew a crop of purple maize from a dried cob an argentinian friend gave me.
This type of corn is not sweet at all and very hard, so cannot be readily prepared for eating through steaming or even boiling. Reading up on the traditional use of purple maize, it seems in peru at least it was mainly used to make a type of unfermented chicha that was sweetened with pineapple.
This seems nice, but I would like to try and make a fermented corn beer similar to chicha de jora, that would normally use yellow or white corn. Does anyone know if the starch in purple corn can be converted to sugars using either the traditional (chewing in the mouth) or modern (mashing) techniques?
I have soaked, sprouted and dried about 2kg of the kernels. I also have some malted barley and ale yeast, and was thinking about combing the corn and barley malt in a 1:1 ratio, and fermenting using a standard all grain procedure. Alternatively I could chew the 2kg of kernels (sounds like fun for a lazy sunday) and use something like sauerkraut juice for yeast, to make a more authentic chicha.
Any ideas or tips? cheers!