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Equipment

626 sourced equipment pages: vessels, tools, appliances and built structures.

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14 items

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Watercolor-and-ink illustration of a raised timber Purépecha troje with a covered portal, tejamanil roof and household yard.
Built structures

Purépecha troje

A Purépecha troje is a timber household dwelling with a raised loft for grain and seeds. Its portal, room and tapanco combine family life, food work and storage in a single structure.

household-granaries
Sierra P’urhépecha
Watercolor-and-ink illustration of a rounded earthen cuexcomate household granary beneath layered grass roofing in a quiet courtyard.
Built structures

Cuexcomate

A cuexcomate is a fixed household granary of central Mexico: a hollow earthen body with a dry-grass roof, used chiefly to store maize. Its shape and construction vary by region.

household-granaries
Morelos
Built structures

CIMAV hybrid chipotle dryer

A CIMAV industrial chipotle oven combines solar-heated water and recirculated air with auxiliary gas heat and a separate wood smoker. It differs from Camargo’s traditional open masonry cocedores; reports describe capacity differently.

Drying kilns and dryers
Chihuahua
Hand-painted cutaway illustration of a Yucatecan Maya píib, showing an earth pit below ground with heated stones, wrapped food and a partial leaf-and-earth cover.
Built structures

Píib (Maya earth oven)

An in-ground Yucatecan Maya oven that uses fire-heated stones and a covered pit to cook food slowly. Documented pit depth, coverings and loading sequence vary; this page presents sourced examples rather than one standard design.

Pits and cavities
Yucatán
Open masonry chipotle cocedor with red peppers spread across its broad surface.
Built structures

Chipotle cocedor

A fixed masonry-and-wood structure used in Camargo to smoke and dry ripe jalapeños into chipotle. Sources give regional dimensions and one separate experimental oven, not a safe construction plan.

Drying kilns and dryers
Camargo
Editorial comparison of a generic wooden pulque-fermentation barrel and a modern blue plastic tub, shown as separate vessels in a plain room; the tinacal is the setting, not either vessel.
Equipment

Wood barrel and modern tub in a tinacal

Pulque fermentation may use a wooden barrel or a modern plastic or fibreglass tub. The tinacal is the room or place where the vessels stand, not a name for either container.

Tanks and vats
Central Mexican Plateau
Generated historical-style illustration of a carved wooden molinillo standing in a pot of frothy drinking chocolate.
Equipment

Molinillo (chocolate whisk)

A molinillo is a hand-turned whisk used to beat drinking chocolate to a froth. Its carved wooden head works in the pot as the handle turns between the palms.

Handheld mixing and whipping tools
Mexico and Central America
Warm-ivory ink-and-watercolor illustration of pozol nixtamalized maize dough enclosed by broad overlapping plantain leaves, an interpretive depiction of the documented fermentation wrapper.
Equipment

Pozol leaf package

Plantain leaves wrap pozol’s nixtamalized maize dough during fermentation, limiting drying and keeping portions portable in southeastern Mexico.

Bamboo, leaf and wraps
Southeastern Mexico
Archival illustration of a cattle-hide pulque vat sagging into a timber frame over wooden trestles, shown holding cloudy pulque.
Equipment

Framed hide vat for pulque

A framed hide vat is cattle hide fixed around a timber frame and sagging into a basin. In a tinacal it holds aguamiel and its ferment as they become pulque; it is distinct from the room, the acocote and a carrying skin.

Skins and bladders
Central Mexico
An editorial illustration of an empty cowhide vat hanging below a roughly rectangular timber frame, with pale fiber lashing around the irregular rim.
Equipment

Suspended cowhide mezcal fermenter

A hide stretched over a timber support forms an open, hanging basin for agave fermentation. Contemporary accounts document examples in Puebla and Oaxaca; the sources do not establish the form's pre-contact chronology.

Skins and bladders
Puebla
Illustration of an Amis areca-leaf sheath vessel containing broth, leafy greens and a heated andesite stone.
Equipment

Stone-boiling vessel

Stone boiling heats food in a vessel with stones warmed separately in a fire. Amis leaf sheaths, Chinantec jícaras and Northwest Coast cooking baskets are distinct regional forms, not one universal pot.

stone-boiling-vessel
Eastern Taiwan
Watercolor and pencil illustration of an empty, dried acocote gourd, shown diagonally with its narrow and broad openings visible.
Equipment

Acocote

The acocote is a long, hollowed and dried gourd used to draw aguamiel from a mature maguey. It is a harvesting tool: the sap is transferred to a separate vessel before it ferments into pulque.

Gourds, calabashes and carved bowls
Atotonilco el Grande plateau
Editorial illustration of a broad, rounded clay mezcal fermentation pot with agave fibre inside, on a warm ivory background.
Equipment

Clay mezcal fermentation pot

An open earthenware vessel for fermenting cooked agave mash before distillation, documented in Mexican mezcal production. It is distinct from the clay pot still used to distil the fermented mash.

Jars, pots and crocks
Mexico
An illustrated two-part fired-clay mezcal still over a small wood fire, with a copper cooling pan above.
Equipment

Clay-pot still for mezcal

A fired-clay vessel assembly used to distil fermented agave must in several Mexican mezcal traditions. Its arrangement varies by region and producer; the sources document both clay or wooden vapour passages and particular cooling vessels.

Jars, pots and crocks
Oaxaca