Putting up Frozen Corn On The Farm #214

Today’s first was spent on the farm! My husband and I went to my friend’s farm to help with the sweet corn. They only planted four rows. Four farm rows of corn is a lot. This morning my husband went out early to help pick the corn. I went a little later. They only picked a row and a half. The rest of the corn is a later producing corn. It’s a good thing. The row and a half took 8 1/2 hours from picking to putting in the freezer. That was with about 12 people working on it.

The guys picked the corn and brought it to the big barn. Then a bunch of people started shucking the corn.

We had three big kettles to blanche the corn in. Two were on the stove and one was on a burner set up on the floor of the barn. The corn was put in rapidly boiling water and boiled for 3-5 minutes. You can tell when the corn is ready by looking at it.

Then the corn goes into the icy water. We had a double sink and a triple sink to put the corn in. The corn was moved through each of the 5 sinks to cool. Fresh water was used for each of the baths in the sinks as the corn was cooled. When the corn cob was cooled completely, the corn was moved to the cutting table. Several people were there to cut the corn from the cob. The best ears were pulled and left on the cob. They were wrapped in foil and immediately moved to the freezer. Those would be cooked later and served as corn on the cob.

The rest of the ears were cut off and bagged. We put two cups into a quart Ziploc baggie and squeezed out all the excess air. The bags of corns were rinsed to get rid of any stickiness or pieces of corn on the outside of the bag. The bags were then moved to the freezer.

The family has been processing their corn like this for many years. Their 86 year old mother was there running the show. Two brothers, and a sister, along with family members and friends were there to put up the corn.

I put these pictures in so you could see some of the corn setting around. I also liked these because my legs look skinny!!!

The rest of the corn will be ready in about 2 weeks. I don’t know if we will be back to help or not. They sent corn home with everyone. I will be eating corn from today throughout most of the winter.

This fall I will be going back to help with the popcorn and to see how they get it ready to use. I will be riding in the combine and harvesting crops this fall too!!

I have frozen a small amount of corn before, but to do something on this scale is definitely a first for me. It was lots of fun! I enjoyed the great day with all the people.