The workshop
Made in Rouiba
Corn, lime, a millstone, oil and a sound meter. VOLTA comes out of one workshop, and in there we measure everything.
Made in Rouiba
From kernel to bag
One workshop, one line, eight moves. Each has its number, because we measure everything.
Swipe to follow the line.Scroll: the line moves.
- Step 00
The workshop
One line, 4 flavours
Rouiba industrial zone, east of Algiers. Small, clean, loud when it has to be.
Step 01The kernel
Moisture: 13 % max
Whole corn, tested on arrival. A lot that’s too damp goes back where it came from.
Step 02Nixtamal
12 h in lime water
The old move: the kernel soaks, the skin lets go, the corn becomes a dough waiting to happen.
- Step 03
The stone mill
2 stones, 180 rpm
Stone-ground, never reconstituted. Slower. A lot more taste.
Step 04The masa
Rolled to 1.2 mm, cut into triangles
The dough runs through the rollers, the cutter makes the triangles. Always the same ones.
- Step 05
The fryer
184 °C, 58 s
A minute minus two seconds. That’s where the 1.8 mm ridges set.
- Step 06
The seasoning
Seasoning load: 92 %
The drum turns, the powder snows. Edge to centre, not just on top.
Step 07Quality control
62 dB, 1.8 mm, every lot
We bite a chip in front of the sound meter and measure the ridges with calipers. Under 60 dB, the lot waits.
Step 08The bag
165 g net, about 43 chips
Weighed, sealed, dated. The lot number follows the bag all the way to your order.
Yes, we measured.
The crunch, the ridge depth, the seasoning load, the heat. Every lot goes over the bench before it leaves, and a lot that crunches under 60 dB doesn’t leave.
62dB
the crunch
1.8mm
ridge depth
92 %
seasoning load
43
chips a bag, about
4/5
DIABLO’s heat, out of 5
Stone-ground. Never reconstituted.
Plenty of chips start from a dry flour that gets wetted again. We start from the kernel: nixtamal, millstone, fresh masa the same day. It takes longer, and you can see it in the ridges.
Made in Rouiba. Eaten elsewhere.
One workshop, then 58 wilayas. Once it leaves the line the bag isn’t ours any more: it ends up on a roof, by a roadside, on a beach.
Algiers, on a roof 
Kabylie, by the road 
The coast, near Algiers
One new thing a season, never more.
Four flavours, and one drop a season. Not two. We’d rather finish one taste than launch three halfway. We stopped there on purpose.
SEE THE DROP