Here we have a bottle of the "accidental wine". I started out as a bushel of concorde grapes meant to become juice for breakfast. However shortly after my DW Pelenaka made the purchase, we both found ourselves working a ton of hours or being stuck on other projects. So, here we are with grapes in the fridge, in the old ice box downstairs, and in a cooler. After several days a few get moldy. After a week alot of them are moldy. Wife is upset we're going to have to make compost out of them. I'm upset we're both working overtime, rather than making extra money, we're throwing money away. Finally I get a day off, the kids are at thier dad's in texas, pelenaka is working and I'm looking at a bunch of grapes. I start to thinking, maybe they'll make wine good enough to cook with. Maybe I should try? If they bomb as wine they'll turn into vinegar. We can use vinegar too. I have some champagne yeast and some flip top beer bottles set aside for a batch of homemade rootbeer that still hasn't been made. I also have some old wine jugs and air locks.
What the heck! I start sorting grapes. The bad ones head for the compost bucket. The good ones get pinched between my fingers into a large clean stewpot. When I'm done I have almost two gallons of crushed grapes in the stewpot. I know the inside of red grapes are white, and so is thier juice. To turn the juice red the grapes need to ferment skins and all. I toss a cup of sugar into the grapes along with half the packet of yeast. Everything gets stired up, and a lid is put on the pot and it's stuck in a warm place. Next day I'm back to work. Ten days later I peek into my pot. It's bubbling, man it's really bubbling! Another pot of water on the backyard wood cookstove, an old T shirt in the pots bottom boiling too. Drag out the cider/wine press, soap it up, rinse it off, rinse again with the boiling water. Fit the old T shirt into the presses basket. Put the grapes in and squeeze them. Took longer to clean the press than to press it all out. When all id done we're about a cup short of two gallons. Juice is divided between two gallon jugs and some sugar water is added to bring the level up into the necks. Airlocks on and into the cellar it went. Forgotten for months.
Suddenly found and remembered months later, I decide to bottle it up. One flip top quart and a bunch of pints. I save a little less than a pint for an early sample. The sealed bottles go back to the cellar. The sample goes into the fridge minus one glass. The first glass is a bit watery, just like the first and only batch of hard cider. DW never gets around to tasting a sample, the sample oxidizes and finds it's way into a frying pan with some mushrooms.
Tonight, again a couple months later, DW needs some wine to cook with and cracks a bottle. The balance goes into glasses. Not bad! Better than I expected! It's quite drinkable.
I think this self sufficiency thing might be possible.
Tom Good had his "Peapod 75".
And Woodsrunner has his "Concorde 08".
Lets have a toast to self suffiency!
Cheers!
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
I think we can do it!!!!
Here we have a bottle of the "accidental wine". I started out as a bushel of concorde grapes meant to become juice for breakfast. However shortly after my DW Pelenaka made the purchase, we both found ourselves working a ton of hours or being stuck on other projects. So, here we are with grapes in the fridge, in the old ice box downstairs, and in a cooler. After several days a few get moldy. After a week alot of them are moldy. Wife is upset we're going to have to make compost out of them. I'm upset we're both working overtime, rather than making extra money, we're throwing money away. Finally I get a day off, the kids are at thier dad's in texas, pelenaka is working and I'm looking at a bunch of grapes. I start to thinking, maybe they'll make wine good enough to cook with. Maybe I should try? If they bomb as wine they'll turn into vinegar. We can use vinegar too. I have some champagne yeast and some flip top beer bottles set aside for a batch of homemade rootbeer that still hasn't been made. I also have some old wine jugs and air locks.
What the heck! I start sorting grapes. The bad ones head for the compost bucket. The good ones get pinched between my fingers into a large clean stewpot. When I'm done I have almost two gallons of crushed grapes in the stewpot. I know the inside of red grapes are white, and so is thier juice. To turn the juice red the grapes need to ferment skins and all. I toss a cup of sugar into the grapes along with half the packet of yeast. Everything gets stired up, and a lid is put on the pot and it's stuck in a warm place. Next day I'm back to work. Ten days later I peek into my pot. It's bubbling, man it's really bubbling! Another pot of water on the backyard wood cookstove, an old T shirt in the pots bottom boiling too. Drag out the cider/wine press, soap it up, rinse it off, rinse again with the boiling water. Fit the old T shirt into the presses basket. Put the grapes in and squeeze them. Took longer to clean the press than to press it all out. When all id done we're about a cup short of two gallons. Juice is divided between two gallon jugs and some sugar water is added to bring the level up into the necks. Airlocks on and into the cellar it went. Forgotten for months.
Suddenly found and remembered months later, I decide to bottle it up. One flip top quart and a bunch of pints. I save a little less than a pint for an early sample. The sealed bottles go back to the cellar. The sample goes into the fridge minus one glass. The first glass is a bit watery, just like the first and only batch of hard cider. DW never gets around to tasting a sample, the sample oxidizes and finds it's way into a frying pan with some mushrooms.
Tonight, again a couple months later, DW needs some wine to cook with and cracks a bottle. The balance goes into glasses. Not bad! Better than I expected! It's quite drinkable.
I think this self sufficiency thing might be possible.
Tom Good had his "Peapod 75".
And Woodsrunner has his "Concorde 08".
Lets have a toast to self suffiency!
Cheers!
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Installing sights on the $65.00 project shotgun
The first step to making the project shotgun a practical gun we need sights. Here we have a set of TruGlo brand fiber optic sights meant for a Knight brand muzzleloader. I aquired these last summer at a garage sale for $2.00. Also in the photo is a tube of Loctite 380 Black Max cement. This cement is formulated to be used in applications where shock is a factor. I couldn't find this locally, but, was able to special order it from my local Lowes store, which can special order through W.W.Grainger, the industrial supply company. Shipped to my door it was around $7.00. In addition you will need a flat surface to work on, a vice with padded jaws if possible, a square a drill press or a second square,a scriber, some rubber cement, an abrasive of some sort, and alcohol or hot water & detergent to degrease everything.
The weather has turned cold again and my workshop has no heat. Lucky for me an old friend offered me the use of his engineering lab at work. While I suddenly found myself in a high tech setting, the environment we were in was overkill, so don't let it intimidate you. The important thing was having a warm place to work so the cement could bond properly
Here's the gun set in the vice. Careful adjustment was made to make sure the gun was vertical. The fore end had been removed and we clamped on the barrel lump. Had this vice had padded jaws we could have clamped on the reciever itself. After clamping the gun in the vice we moved it around unti it was vertical. To do this we placed a square on our smooth surface and checked it against the sides of the reciever. This gun has an investment cast reciever, the right side of the gun was milled true during manufacture, the left side however was anything but flat. The right side is what we used to put our square against. The next step is to find the very top of the gun barrel. This is done by placing the second square against the first or by placing a piece of rod in your drill press. This is gently brought down on top of the barrel where it touches the top of the radius, which you then mark with your scriber.
Here the barrel has been marked and using the scribe marks to center the sights I have rubber cemented the sights in place. This allowed me to make sure of where I wanted the sights on the barrel. Having decided the permanant location of the sights I'm scribing around thier bases. After this step I removed the sights and used the scribe marks as a guide in removing the bluing and roughing the barrel surface beneath the sights. I didn't try to remove the bluing all the way to my scribe lines, I needed them to use as a reference when finally cementing the sights in place. While I was at it, I used my abrasive to remove the anodizing from the bottom of the sights themselves. I then degreased the barrel with alcohol and applied a bead of black max to the barrel where the bluing was removed.
Here is the finished job. All we have to due is put the fore end back on. I'm going to wait a few days before trying to shoot it. This should give the cement time to fully cure. You may think the sight locations look a little funny. There was a method to my madness. The rear sight was located in front of rather than on top of the chamber. When a gun fires the barrel actually expands slightly in the chamber area. A microscopic and temporary stretch of the metal for sure, but, why risk the cement bond eventually breaking because of it. Also being in the over 40 crowd my eyes are starting to feel thier age. The farther away that rear sight is, the easier it is to see. And yes there is 3/4 of an inch between the end of the barrel and the front sight. I mentioned in the first post about this gun that it might get screw in chokes. There has been another development on that front. A recent talk with a gunsmith friend put me on another track. Back in the days before screw in chokes, add on choke devices were popular. Sold under the names of polychoke, cutts compensator, etc. It was popular to take older shotguns with very tight chokes and convert them to these adjustable systems. When these devices were installed, it destroyed any collector value these guns might have had. Well, now it's popular to take those old often worn out shotguns and make coach style guns for cowboy action shooting. This has left my gunsmith friend with a huge parts box full of old style choke devices. And that box is mine to pick through with whatever I select costing between $5.00 and $15.00 depending on what I pick. These devices mount to the outside of the barrel, so we'll need that 3/4" to mount one.
The weather has turned cold again and my workshop has no heat. Lucky for me an old friend offered me the use of his engineering lab at work. While I suddenly found myself in a high tech setting, the environment we were in was overkill, so don't let it intimidate you. The important thing was having a warm place to work so the cement could bond properlyHere's the gun set in the vice. Careful adjustment was made to make sure the gun was vertical. The fore end had been removed and we clamped on the barrel lump. Had this vice had padded jaws we could have clamped on the reciever itself. After clamping the gun in the vice we moved it around unti it was vertical. To do this we placed a square on our smooth surface and checked it against the sides of the reciever. This gun has an investment cast reciever, the right side of the gun was milled true during manufacture, the left side however was anything but flat. The right side is what we used to put our square against. The next step is to find the very top of the gun barrel. This is done by placing the second square against the first or by placing a piece of rod in your drill press. This is gently brought down on top of the barrel where it touches the top of the radius, which you then mark with your scriber.Here the barrel has been marked and using the scribe marks to center the sights I have rubber cemented the sights in place. This allowed me to make sure of where I wanted the sights on the barrel. Having decided the permanant location of the sights I'm scribing around thier bases. After this step I removed the sights and used the scribe marks as a guide in removing the bluing and roughing the barrel surface beneath the sights. I didn't try to remove the bluing all the way to my scribe lines, I needed them to use as a reference when finally cementing the sights in place. While I was at it, I used my abrasive to remove the anodizing from the bottom of the sights themselves. I then degreased the barrel with alcohol and applied a bead of black max to the barrel where the bluing was removed.Here is the finished job. All we have to due is put the fore end back on. I'm going to wait a few days before trying to shoot it. This should give the cement time to fully cure. You may think the sight locations look a little funny. There was a method to my madness. The rear sight was located in front of rather than on top of the chamber. When a gun fires the barrel actually expands slightly in the chamber area. A microscopic and temporary stretch of the metal for sure, but, why risk the cement bond eventually breaking because of it. Also being in the over 40 crowd my eyes are starting to feel thier age. The farther away that rear sight is, the easier it is to see. And yes there is 3/4 of an inch between the end of the barrel and the front sight. I mentioned in the first post about this gun that it might get screw in chokes. There has been another development on that front. A recent talk with a gunsmith friend put me on another track. Back in the days before screw in chokes, add on choke devices were popular. Sold under the names of polychoke, cutts compensator, etc. It was popular to take older shotguns with very tight chokes and convert them to these adjustable systems. When these devices were installed, it destroyed any collector value these guns might have had. Well, now it's popular to take those old often worn out shotguns and make coach style guns for cowboy action shooting. This has left my gunsmith friend with a huge parts box full of old style choke devices. And that box is mine to pick through with whatever I select costing between $5.00 and $15.00 depending on what I pick. These devices mount to the outside of the barrel, so we'll need that 3/4" to mount one.Next time we'll either pick and install a choke device, or we will make our cast lead butt plate.
Oh! BTW, when we were finished my friend passed along 14 boxes of cast bullet 9mm handgun reloads. Can anybody guess what our first chamber insert will be? THANKS Jeff!
Woods
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Another book recomendation.
As I said in a previous post. One of my new years resolutions was to spend more time reading books. Well, I just finished reading "Unbridled Cowboy" by Joseph B. Fussell. This book is the memoirs of a man who lived from 1879 to 1957. A rebellious texas teenager who set out to make his own life under his own terms. In a time when men were still expected to be men. In fact proud to be men. This book is up there with Elmer Kieth's "Hell, I was There" on my list of must reads. I found "Unbridled Cowboy" in the new release section of my local library. If you like first hand accounts of life in another time, this book won't dissapoint you.
Saturday I install the fiber optic sights on the $65.00 project gun. Hopefully I will remember to get someone to take pictures of the process. These sights were purchased last summer at a garage sale for $2.00. We will be using a cement recomended by my gunsmith rather than soldering. The cement adds another $6.00 and change to the project. Not only am I trying to keep the project low budget, I am trying to keep this project at a skill level that just about anyone can do.
Woods
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Bread, the families staff of life
In our house bread is a family effort. Last summer my dear bride Pelenaka ordered a bushel of Montana organic wheat from our local health food store. It was one of our rare instances of lack of communication. A week later found us getting ice cream at the county fair and talking to one of our food network friends. When I inquired to our friend about buying wheat from a local grower, Pelenaka said nothing until our friend left. A couple weeks later found us with the Montana wheat home in buckets and our friend knocking on our door with a couple bags containing 100lbs of local grown. The locally grown only cost us a couple loaves of bread to our friend and a couple more to the farmer. The locally grown has proven to be a blessing of sorts.
The locally grown wheat came right from the combines auger without further cleaning. Here stepdaughter known as "sidekick" picks chaff from corns of the locally grown wheat. We often find the family sitting around the table doing this. No TV, radio, or video games, just family joking and conversation. Lately we've been cleaning and grinding for our next batch of bread while the current batch bakes. The warmth of the oven allows the thermostat to be turned down in the rest of the house. The warm room and the smell of baking bread soon has everyone relaxed, and the conversation soon flows.
Here the youngest stepdaughter, known from here on as "princess" grinds the grain. The Retsel little Ark mill makes short work of grinding flour. This past december it replaced the Back to Basics mill we had used for two years. The back to basics still works. But, the Retsel greatly increased production rate and quality with it's finer grind. The Retsel mill is well worth the money and a motor can be easily added at a later date should the desire or need arise. The only modification has been the adition of a piece of aluminum flashing cut to fit snugly below the stones of the mill. This helps keep the flour headed toward the catch pan rather than on the mills operator. We are very happy with the Retsel mill and highly recomend it for it's quality alone. The fact that it's american made made it's purchase part of my plan to save the American economy. If you read around on the net you may read of Retsel taking a long time to fill it's orders. That may or may not be Retsels fault. They tell you right up front on the website it takes 2-3 weeks for them to ship. Well it then too UPS a week to get our mill from Idaho to Salt Lake City, then another four days from there to Buffalo, NY.
I'm sure you too will find home made bread good for your health. And I hope you'll find the time to grind your own flour. If you do grind your own, may your family find it's health in the family activity.
And you know what? I was so busy enjoying myself making bread with the family, I forgot to take a picture of the bread itself. I'll have to post that one later for you.
Woods
The locally grown wheat came right from the combines auger without further cleaning. Here stepdaughter known as "sidekick" picks chaff from corns of the locally grown wheat. We often find the family sitting around the table doing this. No TV, radio, or video games, just family joking and conversation. Lately we've been cleaning and grinding for our next batch of bread while the current batch bakes. The warmth of the oven allows the thermostat to be turned down in the rest of the house. The warm room and the smell of baking bread soon has everyone relaxed, and the conversation soon flows.
Here the youngest stepdaughter, known from here on as "princess" grinds the grain. The Retsel little Ark mill makes short work of grinding flour. This past december it replaced the Back to Basics mill we had used for two years. The back to basics still works. But, the Retsel greatly increased production rate and quality with it's finer grind. The Retsel mill is well worth the money and a motor can be easily added at a later date should the desire or need arise. The only modification has been the adition of a piece of aluminum flashing cut to fit snugly below the stones of the mill. This helps keep the flour headed toward the catch pan rather than on the mills operator. We are very happy with the Retsel mill and highly recomend it for it's quality alone. The fact that it's american made made it's purchase part of my plan to save the American economy. If you read around on the net you may read of Retsel taking a long time to fill it's orders. That may or may not be Retsels fault. They tell you right up front on the website it takes 2-3 weeks for them to ship. Well it then too UPS a week to get our mill from Idaho to Salt Lake City, then another four days from there to Buffalo, NY.
I'm sure you too will find home made bread good for your health. And I hope you'll find the time to grind your own flour. If you do grind your own, may your family find it's health in the family activity.
And you know what? I was so busy enjoying myself making bread with the family, I forgot to take a picture of the bread itself. I'll have to post that one later for you.
Woods
Saturday, January 31, 2009
The $65.00 project shotgun part 1
Here's the $65.00 project shotgun. That was the dealers price tag. I was out trying to find a new owner for a box full of old gun books when I came accross this gun. After selling the books my out of pocket costs are more like $35.00. It's a 12ga 3" Rossi single shot. Cut down to a youth gun of sorts. 19" barrel, 33" oal, 12.5"lop. Previous owner cut it down for his grandson to shoot. Shortening the barrel left it a cylinder bore, and sightless. The length of pull is so short my short armed teenage daughter even has trouble holding it. Though she did call it "kinda cute" when she first saw it. I shot it with trap loads and it kicks like a minature mule. Though it's bark isn't as bad as I expected. So, I suppose it is "kinda cute", pit bull puppy cute, that is. We're going to make it into a deer/turkey hunting machine. We're also going to play with some chamber inserts allowing it to shoot various rifle and pistol ammo. Future instalments on this project will include.
Installing a set of fiber optic sights purchased last summer for $2.00 (garage sale)
Making a cast lead buttplate to lengthen the stock and add some recoil absorbing weight.
Making a slip on leather recoil pad, to hide the lead buttplate and lessen recoil.
We will test several brands and types of chamber inserts.
We may also try our hand at installing screw in chokes, providing the expense doesn't take us out of the low budget category.
Woods
One mans junk is another mans treasure!
This is why I love junk shops! For those that don't know, this is a camp oven. It has legs so you can stand it in a pile of campfire coals, and a dished lid so you can put coals on the top. A person that is good can actualy bake in one of these things. It's not to be confused with a dutch oven, which has a domed lid and no legs. This one has never been used, still has the factory wax coating on it. When I aquired it a week ago it had a broken handle. Which is probably what caused the big 3" long chip in it's lid. Last weekend when my wife Pelenaka and I had a rare weekend off together, we went junk shopping. Last time I looked a 10qt deep camp over was bringing $85.00 + shipping in the mail order catalogs. And shipping would be quite steep, this thing weighs nearly 20lbs. It was right next to the door when we walked in. The chip isn't so bad, there is still some lip there to keep the coals from falling off. It was priced at $20.00, I walked it right over to the counter and told the lady to pack it up, I was taking it, but wanted to look around. The lady promptly informed me they were having a 25% off sale. so it ended up costing $15.00. For $70.00 I think I can live with the chip. The broken handle came out of my blacksmiths shop scrap pile. And this is why I love junk shops!
Woods
Friday, January 30, 2009
The weather has me thinking
It's been bitter cold here for weeks. The cold has finally broke and temps have risen into the 20's. That's a mixed blessing when you live downwind from Lake Erie. Bitter cold air won't hold much moisture. Just below freezing air will hold alot of it. For a little while at least. When that moisture travels a few miles from it's source it begins falling in the form of snow.
It reminds me of a winter many years ago. I was old enough to hunt, so we are probably talking the winter of 77. One of the worst on record. Dad and I were out hunting with friends from church. Several hours into our hunt the elder brother Alan came by my stand and asked if I was cold. I sure was and told him so in a most colorful manner! At this point he said we should build a fire. We gathered wood and tinder and Alan pulled a small metal box from his pocket. Well I got a lesson that day. How easy it really is to start a fire with flint and steel. And I've been able to snap them off pretty easy ever since.
I have a rare saturday off tomorrow. My stepdaughters age 12&14 both have licenses. Maybe we'll go squirrel hunting. I've got a small metal box over there on the shelf. It's right next to the .22lr cartridges. I'm sure at least one of the girls would like to learn the magic of it's contents.
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