Blog – Page 13

Make Chili Tepin Hot Sauce

January 23, 2014 by Jason 10 Comments

I grow lots of tepin chili peppers. They give me a huge bounty! I dehydrate them, cook with them, and make hot sauce. There’s always plenty left to dry and grind up into a powder. Tepin’s are my favorite… and quite interesting too. Here are a few things I learned about them.

Chili Tepin pepper plants I started over the winter of 2012. These were near the end of the 2013 season.

Tepin peppers are the only native pepper in the US. They’re native to the US and Northern Mexico. Tepin’s are one of the hottest chile peppers, often compared to Bhut Jolokia (ghost peppers) and Habenero’s Tepin rank around 100,000-250,000 units on the Scoville scale Tepin’s are called the “mother of all peppers,” because it is thought to be the oldest form of the Capsicum annum species. Also known as birds-eye, or bird chile’s The Tepin took the place of Jalapeño as the state, native pepper in Texas.

I also notice that while it feels more natural to call them tepin chili’s, they are more often referred to as “Chili Tepin’s.” Go figure. Other terms are Chiltepin, flea peppers and mosquito peppers. Tepin is apparently an Aztec term… which means “flea.” Chili Tepin’s can easily be confused with Pequin chiles. Pequin’s are oblong with a longer-lasting burn… but milder. Tepin peppers hit you with an intense burn (I can smell it on the nose) but it’s a very short-lived burn. Tepin peppers should be used sparingly… which brings me to my post. I ground them all up and made a hot sauce 🙂

Chili Tepin pepper hot sauce… with the seeds, and no artificial colors.

Process

5 tbs. minced garlic (I grow a lot of garlic and so I have it pre-minced in a jar in the fridge to use when I need it. You could use 5-6 whole cloves too)
1 cup of tepin chili’s. When I made this batch (I used half-dried, and half fresh picked. They were coming in in waves.)
1 cup apple cider vinegar (I used Bragg’s vinegar with the mother)
1/2 cup water
2 tbs. sweet (or hot) Hungarian paprika
1 teaspoon of sea salt (I had some smoked sea-salt, so I used that)
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum (I used this to thicken it to the consistency of Sriracha sauce)

Add everything into a food processor or blender (except the xanthan gum), and whip it for a few minutes. Now, I should note… I left all my seeds in the sauce, but next time, I plan to strain them out. At this point, you could use a sieve and strain out the seeds if you don’t want them. Whatever you do, do it, and put it back in the food processor.

Mix the xanthan gum into 2.5 tablespoons of water. Mix it real good and make sure there are no clumps.

Now, add the xanthan mixture to the hot sauce in the food processor and mix for another minute or less. Don’t overwork the xanthan gum as it will start to thin out again.

When done, pour into a bowl and let it sit for an hour or two to allow any air in the mixture to escape. Once done, bottle and enjoy. As for storing your hot sauce, most would say to refrigerate it, but I keep mine in the spice cabinet or pantry. I figure, it will be used soon enough anyway. I’ve also destroyed a few bottles of Tabasco sauce by putting it in the fridge. Since then, I’ve always kept it in the pantry too.

If you make some, drop me a line and let me know how yours turns out.

Just for fun. This is the Carolina Reaper (supposed to be the hottest pepper for 2013)

Your Own Handmade Beeswax Skin Cream

January 19, 2014 by Susan 6 Comments

I’m going to give you a brief overview of making your own style of beeswax hand cream at home. It’s easy to follow the recipes on the internet and get something decent, although sometimes it takes two, three or four attempts to understand the key things that make a great consistency. It took us some time and testing. I’ve tried water-based recipes and many of the variations in the process to find a cream that I and my family like. To scent or not to scent? Water or no water? Should we use the secondary agents, or preservatives? The science can be as simple, or as complex as you want to make it. Creams and lotions you buy from the store usually have a plethora of ingredients that I seek to avoid. Those ingredients help the cream to last longer, or go on smoother… but how does the skin like it? Paraben for example is one of those ingredients that people are avoiding, just like aluminum in deodorant? We wanted to come up with a recipe that we liked and also fit a demographic of our local friends and family interested in more natural products.

We shave blocks of our cleaned and processed beeswax for measuring.

Having a hand-made beeswax cream of your own makes awesome, and easy gifts. Taking the process into consideration, the ingredients I use, (thank you, Amazon) the containers, and my effort to make it all, we’ve found a recipe that is economical for us, something we can call our own and make it the same every time. This is important because we sell ours at the local farmers market, and when people come back for more, we need to be able to sell them more of what they originally bought and loved.

High-quality ingredients for homemade hand cream.

There are many recipes out there and even more variations. Process also affects how your own cream will come out. We’ve made creams in the past that we loved… but neglected to write down exactly what it was we used and how we made it, and where was that recipe we originally followed? As a result, we couldn’t re-create it. I spent a little time going over many recipes, and many theories written by others and just decided to use the most natural ingredients I could, and start with the simplest method of an unscented cream.

If you think I’m sharing my recipe with you, I’m sorry to let you down. But I’m sharing something better… an approach to create your own.

Cream, or lotion?

Is it a cream or a lotion? This is something Jason always complains about because he’s still scarred from the movie “Silence of the Lamb” years ago. So, I took a minute to better distinguish a cream from a lotion. Creams are usually about 2/3 oil part (including butters and waxes) and 1/3 water part (total water-soluble ingredients) while lotions are more 2/3 water part and 1/3 oil part. 5-6% beeswax is generally sufficient to give your emulsion enough body. These ratios can be adjusted as you desire. You’ll find yourself experimenting.

Lotions and creams are ’emulsions.’ Most everyone knows that oil and water repel each other and so they will separate if you don’t achieve a proper emulsion. To do that, we need an emulsifier. An emulsifier is an agent that binds water and oil together so it will not separate. There are many different emulsifiers with different strengths. Depending on your philosophy (ours is, less is more), some argue that you need a secondary emulsifier. Examples;

Palm Stearic (a vegetable-based Stearic Acid) with Cetearyl Alcohol (a vegetable-based emulsifying wax.)
Beeswax with Borax
Lecithin with a secondary emulsifier

Setting the emulsion in beeswax hand cream.

I chose beeswax and have experimented with just that. Beeswax is considered an emulsifier with a low strength, and it’s said that over time, it will allow the water and oil to separate. That’s probably true, but I’ve adjusted my formula to be water-less to avoid that separation. I don’t use borax. Also, water is susceptible to bacterial and fungal growth, and must have an anti-microbial agent such as paraben, or grapefruit seed extract. Since I don’t want to add either, I settled on a water-less formula. I use food grade almond and coconut oils. No matter how high the quality of your oil is, all oils can go rancid when they come into contact with air. I chose Vitamin E (an anti-oxidant) and good for the skin as well. I have read rosemary oil extract can be used too but I have not used it yet. The oils are added to the oil during the heating phase, however, I hold out the Vitamin E oil and add that during the cooling/mixing stage so that some of the benefits are not cooked out of it. This has been my standard for over two years now and it makes a wonderfully textured, long-lasting great-smelling cream that I can’t keep in stock.

My process:

Having everything very clean and trying not to touch the cream as you work with it is important so that you keep all foreign bacteria out. I add my measured beeswax into the almond oil and begin heating over low heat. While it’s heating, I add food grade coconut oil and stir until all ingredients are dissolved to a consistent looking oil. Note, when I have used the best, organic, food grade coconut oil I can find, I have seen very, tiny little hairs in the solution. You have to be looking pretty hard… but you might see some. After plenty of panic, I’ve found that it is natural coconut fibers from the oil. This might suggests less processing or more natural, so this is really a good thing to me.

I remove from the heat and let it cool for about 15 minutes (until around 122 F.) I periodically check it and stir it watching for my emulsion to set. As it does, I give it another stir. I’ll add in the Vitamin E and stir some more helping it cool. I’ll complete a quick house chore and come back. I use a hand-wand type mixer and have dedicated it to the cause. It works well, and makes stirring easier. I do not add any fragrances to my creams. However, the high-quality coconut oil that I use adds a natural coconut fragrance to it that we call “naturally scented. The cream eventually sets to a consistency that is like gravy, maybe a little thicker. I use a rubber spat to fill my clean containers. From there… we print out some labels of nothing more than clear address labels and a laser printer.

Uncapping honey frames before they are "slung." — Uncapping honey frames before they are “slung.”

A note on beeswax:

If you choose to use beeswax, obviously, you need to get some. It’s handy that we have our own hives here, but let me give you a hint. Your community might have a much larger population of beekeepers than you are aware of. There’s an easy 85 beekeepers within reasonable driving distance of our homestead. You can sometimes locate them by calling your local police and fire department. In more rural ares, you might call the county extension. Just ask if they keep a list of beekeepers. Many do because they often get called to send a beekeeper out to collect a swarm of bees out of the front tree. On in our area, you have a map such as this.

When using the beeswax, a little goes a long way when making creams and lotions. You don’t use a lot like you would making candles. You do want the best, cleanest beeswax you can get… preferably the wax that was sliced off the frames before the beekeeper slung the honey out. If you get in good with a local beekeeper, you can sometimes tell them what you are doing, and they can save that aside for you. Do know that this wax could cost more than another grade of wax. Some beekeepers use all there wax… others, will process it and sell it when they have it. The moral of the story… don’t pay full price at Micheal’s if you don’t have to. Even better, find your local bee club and check in to setting up some bee hives of you own!

I’ve intentionally kept the process general knowing that you can Google many hand cream and lotion recipes to start out with. I recommend you do start with a recipe so you can get the feel for how it works. Once you understand more about how it works, you can begin to experiment and create a recipe that is all your own.

Have fun, and enjoy some pictures.

Making sausage at home

January 13, 2014 by Jason 5 Comments

Sausage… they say everyone loves it until they see how it’s made. When I saw how it was made commercially, I cringed. There’s a lot going on in commercial sausage-making and in the end, it’s jacked with a lot of things we can’t pronounce. Things that are probably worse than the original meat and fat content. But when I make it at home, it’s something of a small miracle. I realize not everyone is making sausage at home… but those of us who have the inclination to do things our own way. We can be creative about the things we add to our sausage and in the end, we know exactly what’s in it. That to me is the incentive to make it myself. Everything I eat is intentional. If I know it’s not good for me, I try not to put it in my body, or at worse, use it in moderation.

I don’t consider myself a carnivore and I’ll enjoy a vegetarian dish just as much as a dish with meat. I believe a diet of mostly plants is good for you but I also believe a diet absent of animal protein is not good for you. Most of us have wondered once or twice how our elders have lived long lives eating bacon for breakfast, and adding lard in their pie crusts. Could half the reason be that at the same time, they weren’t stuffing their face with processed foods? When they woke, they didn’t have toaster treats, baked goods and other things made of aspartame, MSG and HFCS. They had good ole’ fashioned eggs and bacon… then they went outside and worked it off during the day. Like them, our family tries to eat a diverse diet and in moderation.

So where does sausage fit into all of this? Sausage is something that is questionably bad for you. However, I submit that a little of everything that is unprocessed is OK for you… in moderation. Having been made by our own hand and knowing the ingredients is even greater.

So to the point of this article, I’ve made sausages from rabbit, chicken, venison, and most recently pork. I’ve smoked it, froze it fresh, and I’m just completing a curing/drying chamber to get into the wonderful world of Charcuterie. In my quest of trying to make great sausage, I failed the first few times, because I lacked knowing the basics. My sausages turned out dry and crumbly, or tough and with weird textures. However, since understanding a few key things and changing my process to accommodate, I’ve never looked back. I wish these requisites for good sausage were more clear to me from the beginning.

Clean your tools and your area really good… we’re working with raw meat. It’s obvious, right?
Everything needs to be kept COLD. Your meat, your spices, your water, the grinder attachments, the tray you will be grinding in to. Everything. Cold!
Your meat and fat (previously cut into cubes) should be almost frozen. It’s just thawed enough for you to work with it, mix in your spices and grind it. But otherwise, as close to frozen as possible.
I’ve always added my spices to the frozen meat and then added whatever cold liquids I’m using to distribute the seasonings before I ground it. Some believe you should add the seasonings first, grind it, then mix in the liquids to form the pellicle just before stuffing. I have experimented both ways and cannot say I’ve found a difference yet.
The meat should come out of the grinder into a tray or bowl set in ice. I use aluminum trays that I pull out of my deep freeze. They stay cold enough for the short time it’s in the tray before I load it into my stuffer.
While I’m waiting for the pellicle, I fry up a bit of the farce before I stuff it into the casings. If it needs any adjustments to the flavor, now, of course, is the time to do it. This is known as the quenelle test.

The reason for keeping everything cold is so that the fat doesn’t separate from the meat when cooked. If it does, it makes the sausage seem tougher… and have an unpleasant texture. Over-handling the meat doesn’t help it either. Working with it warm, or working it too much will cause what’s called “smear” and it signifies a “broken forcemeat” among sausage geeks. Many will say to give it to the dogs. I haven’t done that yet, but my first batches of sausage were certainly worthy of the dogs. From then on, I took keeping the meat cold very seriously. It does make a difference. Another deficit of my set-up was that my grinder dueled as my stuffer. I’d grind the meat through once, then I’d remove the dies and replace with the stuffing attachments to stuff into the casings. Again, the problem here was over-working the meat. Because it had to go through the auger again as it was stuffed into the casings, I believe it caused a broken forcemeat. I splurged for a separate stuffer, one where you would load the meat into the canister, and crank it down, effectively squirting the meat into the casings. You can see it in the pictures below. This also made a huge difference. Having the right tools for the job certainly helps, but also knowing a little of the science behind it will let you make a perfect sausage.

A quick note on casings. I prefer natural casings over any others. Casings are sold in hanks. A hank will stuff 100-125 lbs of sausage and they are pretty cheap, but not all butchers will sell them to you. I got in good with my local butcher and pick them up anytime I need them. While it may seem a little awkward handing slimy casings, once you have meat in it, there really is nothing better. They are easier to work with over the collagen casings or others that you have to soak before using. Natural casings are also more sheer, but strong enough to stand up to accidental over-stuffing, to a degree.

Oh, a quick note about clean-up. Don’t wash aluminum parts in your dishwasher. After years of washing my grinder parts by hand, just after I made the batch of sausage you see below, I decided to put the parts in the dishwasher only to my demise.

Mixing the spices in sausage before grinding.

Frying up sausage to make sure it’s ready to stuff.

The sausage stuffer. This style doesn’t risk over-working the meat like the auger style does.

A ginger basil spice mix to make a breakfast sausage.

Teh stuffed ginger basil breakfast sausage.

Build a backyard chicken coop

January 9, 2014 by Jason 4 Comments

See the full gallery with many more pictures on BackyardChickens.com

I thought about chickens for almost three years before finally jumping in. Mainly, I wanted to make sure I properly integrated them in to our lifestyle. Having several friends who assured me they were easy and fun surely helped speed up the process, but still, it was important to me to choose and build the right coop and assess all the other issues that might arise with chickens. There is feeding and watering, protection from predators, free-range, or coop? Should I build a chicken tractor? How do I set them up when I go on vacation? I tried to think of all I could so that there would be less surprises. So far, so good. It seems I’m always making a change or addition to the coop, but I started off with a “Cabin-style” coop. I made it out of all recycled materials and either scrounged or bartered for them. Here, I document the process. I don’t go through detailed instructions on how to build a coop, but I show how I address the basic concerns. BackyardChickens.com has a gallery of small, medium and large coops and many people have provided their plans. I found inspiration there, and then set off to build a coop of my own.

Location and foundation

I wanted to tuck the coop in to a place where they would be least disturbed. I actually settled for an area on the hill near my bee hives, behind my shed. Since it was on a hill, I needed to dig a platform on the hill to make a level spot. Drainage was of course a concern that I’ll touch on in a bit.

217417_4682404772744_1629559034_n — After settling on the location, I started to dig… and of course, there were plenty of roots and rocks to remove.

Dug all by hand, and on the cheap. See more detailed pics at: http://www.backyardchickens.com/g/a/6620089/morgan-cabin-coop-in-indiana/ — Dug all by hand, and on the cheap.

Next, I used cement blocks to make the foundation. I created a makeshift footer using the blocks that I’ll try to illustrate in the following pictures. The first row of blocks were leveled and stood up on their side to create sort of an underground wall to prevent coons or other animals from digging under the coop. Below these blocks, I laid down regular chicken wire to prevent any of these digging animals from coming up under the center of the run.

Blocks sitting on chicken wire to keep animals from digging in to the run.

Once leveled, I used fill direct back around the footer walls. — Once leveled, I used fill dirt and packed it back around the footer walls.

I back-filled around the block walls on both the inside and outside walls to hold them in place. Ultimately, I will fill the inside with sand, so it wasn’t so important to stabilize these blocks any more than just enough to keep them standing up. Once filled, I laid blocks down flat on top and this became the foundation that I built the structure on.

Can barely see the work involved at this point.

Next, I set blocks laying down around the perimeter to make the foundation that the structure will be built on. I is important to make sure things are level so that the structure sits comfortably on top.

Foundation is set. There's Heidi, my beloved retriever that passed away before the chickens arrived. — Foundation is set. There’s Heidi, my beloved retriever that passed away before the chickens arrived.

Again, ultimately, sand will fill the inside of the run. Before I got the drain tile ran around the outside perimeter, rain totally filled up the center proving that drainage would need to be addressed.

Framing it up

I put the word out to friends that I was looking for lumber and picked it up where ever it was available. I tore down a swing set and pressure washed it all. After I had a significant scrap pile, I began making the plans for the framing. Turns out, I got a lot of 4×4’s to use instead of the 2×4’s that were originally planned for. The coup is pretty stout as a result. Here’s some of the wood that looks almost new after it was pressure washed and I got all the nails and bolts out.

Free lumber, just had to pick it up and pressure wash it.

Framing started. Skids just placed to add weight and make a place to stand. — Framing started. Skids just placed to add weight to settle the foundation and make a place to stand.

Drain tile

Once I started the framing, we got a few good rains that washed water right in to the run. It was a small pond. So, I decided to start the drainage plan before I got too far along. I grabbed the spade and pretty much shaped out a good trough to lay the pipe around.

Trough shaped out and angled to allow the water to run one way.

Pipe laid and will be filled with gravel. Notice the sloped wall against the coop to keep water out. The Indiana clay soil is also helpful in this case.

Keep in mind that until you actually fill it with gravel and complete the drain tile, it’s not really good at catching the water and diverting it into the pipe. By back-filling, you create resistance… and of course, water seeks the path of least resistance. The perforated drain pipe becomes the only place the water can go. I got it filled and during the first rain, it proved it was working. Water was coming out both ends of the tile and routed around the coop and down the hill.

Next was to keep framing. As such, I needed to plan for windows, but still needed to get them. I traded some wine and honey with a local farmer for three windows, and the tin for the roof. Big score. Another good friend came over with the plywood for the roof. It was being tossed at a job site that he was working at and it was just enough for my 10×12 roof. Again, very helpful to put the word out to all your friends to let them know what you’re doing. There was more than one occasion where someone showed up with some materials to donate.

Roof is on and the tin was the really good and thick kind!

Notice the floor of the coop at left. That was made from wood of my neighbors old deck. He had replaced the deck or something and had some really long 1×6 he was going to burn. I scraped it up in time and put almost all of it to use by the end.

One of the three windows to rough in. All had to be refurbished.

Once I had the windows, I could finish out the roughing and complete the framing. The siding was cut up plywood that actually came from Fernald 🙂 A friend of mine had it lying around, and it wasn’t much good for anything beyond a chicken coop.

The wood that is painted red above (also from the decking wood that I got from the neighbor.) Looks good as new now, huh?

Additional rails for more support if dogs or coyotes jump on the sides.

I also doubled up the rails around the run knowing that I have plenty of dogs and coyotes around that will eventually try to get at them. All of this 2×4 material was donated by another buddy who had piles of 2×4’s that were no longer then 3 and 4 feet. The wood had a lot of nails that had to be pulled. He said the wood was left over from a large foundation job where the 2×4’s were nailed together to hold the cement forms. Again, everything cleaned up nicely.

I added nesting boxes on two sides of the coop for a total of seven boxes. Four boxes on the long side and 3 boxes on the short. Many of the cabin coops I found online only had one set. I figured it was easy enough to add boxes on two side, so why not?

Adding siding. — Adding wood siding… all scrap wood. Note different wood and colors. All will be covered in tar paper.

Adding the barn-siding

Got the coop painted and the hardware mesh up. I chose 3/8″ mesh so that possums and raccoons could not reach through and get at the chickens. Kind of funny that traditional “chicken wire” (the pentagon shaped wire) is not really that great for chickens. It can certainly keep the chickens in, but it can’t keep greedy hands out. Coons are known for reaching through that wire, grabbing a chicken and pretty much eating a hole in to it right through the wire. So, I opted for the smaller, stronger 3/8″ wire mesh.

Tar-papered and ready for bard siding. — Tar-papered and ready for barn siding.

Notice the door to the run is nothing more than a frame of 2×4’s that will also use the 3/8″ hardware mesh. So a door to the run, and a door to the coop for easy cleaning are essential to the “cabin-style” coop.

Refurbishing the windows

The windows are just as you would suspect… rickety and wobbly. I needed these to be tight so I could control the ventilation in the coop. I also needed them to stand up to the elements that I know are going to be pounding on them. There were three windows and a total of 21 panes in all that needed to be re-glazed. Window refurbishing happened on rain or snow days in between the framing.

Working the wondows. — Working the windows.

I chiseled out the old glazing, removed the panes of glass and cleaned and scraped those separately. I stripped, scraped and sanded the windows and prepared them for painting.

The green window above has no less than 7 layers (all different colors) of paint that I counted. The window was painted over and over with no sanding or preparation. I used a stripper that made pretty quick work of getting the layers off, and also made it easy to see the different colored layers. The glazing on this window was also once treated with caulk. It was a total wreck.

But then, a total transformation. All three window panes needed a serious amount of work, but in the end, you can see that all of them look like they belong together and the barn red color just pops. Some of the windows needed some girth planed off them to fit freely in my rough-ins. In the end, I had three very custom windows all painted red and treated the same.

Decided to practice some stained glass work on the window facing the run. Figured if I mess up, it’s a chicken coop, right? This is one of the panes glazed in.

Just to add a little color when the sunlight comes through (and I broke a few panes of glass when I was cleaning them) I decided to brush up on some stained-glass work. I made a few panes that used mostly scrap stained glass I had laying around. It allowed me to brush up… and also use some glass that otherwise may have been tossed. The following series shows some of the panes I created.

Yet another pane. This one was made because I cracked the corner of the pane while I had it out 🙂

All the panes put in and installed in the coop.

At night, the light inside the coop shines through and it looks really good. The picture does it no liberty.

Notice the top of the nesting box. The was the same style tin roofing that is on top, but there were some red pieces for the picking. I took these and pounded out the ridges to flatten them out as best I could. These were then screwed on to the top of the tar-papered lid and fitted with screened door hinges. So, it’s springloaded and wants to shit when you open it. I also use a basic hook and loop to keep coons from getting in.

I got the chickens in the coop and it only took them a day for them to get used to it. The sand in the run offers so many benefits. People buy and feed grit to the chickens. While I haven’t read extensively about it yet, they need some grit in them to help grind and digest their food. Having sand in the run offers a number of conveniences… as food falls in the sand, it also gets in to the chickens in lieu of the grit. Also, as the poop, it acts as a litter box. My original intention over the summer was to periodically sift the sand using a simple frame with 3/8″ hardware mesh under it. Scoop the sand from the run and add to the box, sift out the manure as any other larger matter and throw it in the compost. The fertilizer I pulled out of the coop this year is unbelievable.

I have many more pics, including the hens being introduced to the coop as smaller adolescents, listed in the full gallery on BackyardChickens.com.

The birds enjoy a bunch of plums on a warm summer day.

I spent some time tweaking things after the coop was up and the chickens were in. The feeder and watering system were also made out of reclaimed materials. I use the deep litter method in managing the coop inside. Sometimes, I just rotate all the manure on top in to the straw on the floor and I can go 3-4 months without pulling anything out. When I do, I compost it in my compost pile. Before the winter hit, I layered a lot of the sand straw and manure on my garden. It will be turned into the soil when I prep the garden to be tilled.

Chickens in the sand run, peckin’ out dough. This was a cold winter day, but if the sun is out, so are the chickens.

The coop mostly finished. I was doing basic refinements over the summer.

I also had a scrap piece of gutter that I used in back of the coop. Today, this gutter runs in to a rain barrel set up that stayed full most of the season. While a complete after-thought, the rain barrel worked out well. I ran it to some soaker hoses that went around the grape rows lower down the hill. Takes 2 days for the water to soak out of the barrel.

The coop, the vines and the bees on a cold, but beautiful December day. The scenic reward at the end of the season.

The chickens are very hardy. The coop is tight with wood, tar paper and barn siding. I have a few vents in the top front and back of the coop for mild ventilation. During the bitterest cold days over the winter, I left the pop door open and provided no heat to the coop other than a bulb that stayed on until 10pm. The chickens slowed down laying to about 4-6 eggs a day. There are a lot of thoughts on heating a coop, and my decision was to keep the drafts down and the coop dry and reasonably clean. So far, all has been OK. Check back in the Spring and we’ll do a coop clean-out. I’ll provide an update on what worked and what didn’t.

I know I blazed through everything. If you have any questions or comments, just add them below. I’ll be happy to reply and tell you anything I know. In all, I think I had about $200 in the coop. That was for various hardware, screws, a few boards, window glazing, and some of the perks that I decided to add. For the first year, I am blown away with the amount of eggs, and fertilizer I got from the chickens. Without a doubt, well worth the investment. I give the eggs to family and still have some to sell at the market a dozen at a time. I sell eggs for $2 a dozen, and for each dozen sold, a dollar goes to each of my kids. This was just an easy way to fund some allowance for their banks and it gives me good reason to involve them when I can.

See the full gallery with many more pictures on BackyardChickens.com

Correcting oxidized wine

January 4, 2014 by Jason 14 Comments

I wrote this blog back in 2010 originally. For the record, I haven’t had to deal with oxidized wine since that time. Recently, I’ve been asked about correcting a wine that has oxidized. So, I dug it up and revised it a bit and here it is. Hope it helps.

If you are diligent in tending your wine, you may never experience oxidation. However, if you are like me and tend to experiment a lot, you might have more wine going than you can sometimes keep track of. While a balanced wine generally takes care of itself, sometimes I may check in on it a little later than I should. Meanwhile, perhaps the S02 levels may drop while I’m not looking. But let me be clear, I definitely won’t neglect my prize batches.

The reality of the situation is, I keep a cellar that is like a big test tube of experimentation. They say a good winemaker has a lifetime of experience. I believe that. My goal is to pack in more experience in less time to produce a better wine, sooner. So I experiment a lot and log everything.

I have experienced oxidation a time or two. The best way to describe oxidation is to cut up an apple and watch within seconds while it turns brown. Air is the enemy to wine. Air is also our enemy. Funny, we need it, but it too wears out our bodies and makes us grow old. There are several factors that can oxidize wine. Two most common are too much head space in the carboy, or too low of S02 levels in your wine. Be sure to mind these two things, and you may never experience oxidation.

Many people think when a wine has oxidized, you have to throw it out. Really, oxidation can be reduced, and in some cases eliminated by the use of powdered skim milk. It won’t win you any awards, but it can still become a good, drinkable wine again, reminiscent of the base you fermented. That is better than dumping it down a drain. Try this before you dump it.

The procedure:

Calculate the amount of wine to be treated, in liters, and for each liter of wine measure out 0.5 gm of powdered skim milk into five (5) mL of cold water. Stir into a solution making sure all the skim milk is dissolved. NOTE: It is important that you use powdered skim milk, not de-creamed whole milk or malted milk.
Now bring the S02 level of the wine up to the required amount with respect to the pH.
Stir the wine vigorously and while it’s swirling, add the skim milk solution by pouring a single stream like what would come out of a sink faucet to make it enter the wine well below the surface. There may be a bit of foaming, but it will dissipate. Continue to stir the wine to ensure all the skim milk is well-distributed. It is important that the skim milk solution enters well below the surface. If you pour it on the surface, little, or nothing, will happen. I think the air is already having an effect on it. I have done this and botched ‘the pour’ before and it did nothing for the wine. Once the skim milk is fully distributed, brown curds will develop in the wine but will ultimately settle out.
Replace the airlock and allow the wine to settle for 2-3 days. Meanwhile, prepare a fining agent for fining the wine if you want to try to polish the wine again. I have skipped this with good success.
After 2-3 days, rack the wine off the oxidase curds into a clean carboy and stir in the fining agent (if you do one.) Allow this to settle for about 10 days, then rack the wine off the lees. Add an airlock. Filter. and bottle.

Let’s just try to avoid oxidation in the first place. Check your wine when it’s time, and make sure your sulfite levels are in line with the pH. When fermentation is complete, or when you know the wine is mostly degassed, ditch the airlock and plug that baby with something. I still have yet to find a decent stopper that I like, but I’m planning to be in stainless VC tanks soon. Have little headspace, or flood your headspace with an inert gas. I recommend Argon over CO2. We’re trying to degas our wine already and C02 being soluble, it can get back into the wine. Argon is better in winemaking.

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Correcting oxidized wine

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