how-to – Page 9

Steamed Dumplings ‘Gyoza’

February 11, 2014 by Jason Leave a Comment

I love those little Eastern steamed dumplings. What are they? Wontons? Pot-stickers? Gyoza? I’ve heard them called many things, but to me their tasty little things that I need to have now and then. I’ve made them a few times before using a recipe out of one of my Korean cookbooks, but this time around, I threw it all together from memory and here’s what I came up with. It works!

1 lb. ground pork. I took a 1 lb. kielbasa that I recently made
2 tbs chives (or Korean chives if you have them)
4 Green onions, diced
2 tbs. minced garlic (or 5-6 cloves crushed)
2 tbs. sesame oil
4 tbs. sesame seeds (all I had this time were black)
2 tbs. of oyster, or fish sauce
1/2 tsp. sea salt (I held off since I had this seasoned kielbasa)
And pepper to taste (any kind, black cayenne, I used jalapeno powder that a friend gave me)
Wonton wraps. I always see round wraps in the books, but all I could find were square

20140211_112217 — Steamed dumplings and dipping sauce.

Of course, these can’t be served without the dipping sauce.

2 tbs. soy sauce
1 tsp. honey (or sugar)
1 tsp. rice vinegar
1 tsp. lemon juice
A pinch of the minced green onions
A pinch of sesame seeds

You can mix up the dipping sauce while the dumplings are steaming.

I prefer to brown the pork slightly. In a previous recipe I’ve used, it was added to the bowl raw. I brown it just slightly and plan to let it finish cooking when I steam the dumplings. When done browning, combine all of the ingredients in a bowl and mix it well. Take a wonton wrapper and wet the edges with either water, or an egg wash. You’ll see in my pics, there are two ways I wrapped them. I’m not a great wrapper so I experiment a lot. Spoon about a tablespoon or more in to the wrapper and fold it up. Lay them on a plate and let them seal up a little.

Of course I cooked some up, but I froze the rest right on the plate and once they were frozen, I popped them off and put them in a container in the freezer to pull out when ready.

To prepare them, they say to drop them in boiling water and when they float to the top, they are done. However, I have had bad luck with this. Maybe it’s my wraps. They unfolded in the boiling water. Instead, I used my rice cooker and steamed them. It worked great. Once done, I slapped them on a hot oiled skillet and browned them to my liking.

These are really easy to prepare ahead of time and quick to pull out and cook when you want them. You gotta try them when you need a salty fix.

Ingredients to make steamed dumplings, or gyoza.

About a tablespoon or more of filling and the edges have been moistened with water.

Folding the gyoza in half from opposite corners.

Gyoza folded up just like a wonton, but them folding the two far corners in to each other.

Searing the steamed gyoza in a hot-oiled skillet.

Build a meat curing and drying chamber

February 8, 2014 by Jason 18 Comments

After enough years of cooking and smoking meat, it’s natural for one to venture into the world of curing and drying meat. The art of charcuterie has been around for ages. In Roman law, there were regulations that governed the trade of charcuterie and the French had a profound impact on perfecting it. Charcuterie was a way to preserve meat and give a longer shelf-life before refrigeration. Charcuterie often utilizes the offal of animal products in the form of pâtés, terrines, sausages, bacon, rillettes, trotters, head cheese, and more. I have to admit, some of the things sound pretty crazy, but I’ll try about anything once and I’m a believer in leaving no waste when I take any animal.

Today, hobbyists like myself and others take up the art of charcuterie to attain the flavors derived from this old preservation process. In the coming years, I plan to be processing many of my own animals and so one thing I needed was a drying chamber. In the proper climate, meat drying can be done in a variety of locations. However, my location requires that I set up the ideal climate, and the one I’ll be showing you today uses a modified, frost-free refrigerator to control the two most important factors in meat drying… temperature and humidity. It’s important that the refrigerator is a frost-free model. I have read that if the shelving is coated (vs. bare metal) that they are usually frost-free, but you will want to check to be sure.

There’s plenty of information that can be found on the internet on how to do it… and here’s my take. After a little bartering with a friend, I found what I think may be the perfect type of fridge for the chamber. A fridge with the freezer on the bottom, and the bottom being a door and not a drawer. I suspect a drawer-type could work, but being able to situate things in the bottom (below the meat) and having clear access is the plus.

Frost-free refrigerator with the freezer on the bottom.

Step one:

Clean your refrigerator with bleach and water. Get scrub brushes, toothbrushes and anything else to clean in all the tight spots. I took every piece out of the refrigerator, including the metal brackets on the walls that hold the shelves and I cleaned everything. After all, we’ll be hanging meat in here for long periods of time, so it makes sense that we should clean every inch of it. I also cleaned behind and underneath… where I discovered a mouse once lived.

Also, remember that when a fridge turns on and cools, it condenses moisture out of the fridge. So, it drips out a tube behind into a tray. I took this tube and extended it and ran it to a drain so that I wouldn’t have to worry about any water overflows.

Slowly cutting through the wall and removing the foam one piece at a time.

Step 2:

Once clean, we’ll make the modifications. The first step is to cut a hole through the wall of the upper and lower chambers to join the two into one. This is the most tedious part of the process. Do know that there are things in this wall that you do not want to cut and damage. I had a friend over for the weekend and the two of us took care to do it right. We traced the size of the opening we needed with a pencil. Then, I took a Dremel tool with my whiz-wheel attachment and cut just through the plastic shell… being careful not to go too deep just yet. Just beneath this plastic layer is thick foam. Embedded in the foam are wires, and in my case, copper tubing. By getting the plastic shell off, we used a razor knife to slowly cut down through the foam. Using a metal putty knife, we were able to pop pieces of the foam out a little at a time making sure not to disturb the inner workings.

Hole is cut and I used food grade silicone to coat the exposed foam.

Step three:

Time to clean out the debris and give it another good cleaning before we mount the needed equipment and hang our top rack where we’ll hang things to dry. I went around the sides and trimmed off any sloppy cuts and scraped the foam off the copper tube and the exposed wires.

Once cleaned up, there are many ways to cover the foam. I have seen people who have access to stainless steel to dress it out real nice, but I just ordered some white food grade silicone and covered it over. (More pics at bottom) I also covered the exposed wires with the silicone. The hole is to turn both chambers into one. Below, we will be placing a fan, some electrical outlets, and an ultrasonic humidifier. Having all this in the smaller space below the meat is what we want.

4-gang electric box with cord, bought as one usit from Lowes and modified. — 4-gang electric box with cord bought as one unit from Lowes and modified.

Step 4:

Next, we need some power in the box so that we can plug things in. Many solutions I found on the net ran all the wires out the fridge (many through the gasket of the door). The one requirement I had was to not disturb the door gasket since I want to control the climate inside as best as possible. I wanted just one wire coming out to keep things simple and neat. So, I bought a 4-gang electrical box with a cord at Lowes. I cut the plug end off so that I could run it through a smaller hole out the back of the fridge. Conveniently, this fridge had a hole in it already (covered by a sticker and ready for the installation of an ice-maker in the bottom freezer area. Worked perfectly. I mounted the box in the bottom part of the fridge, ran the cord out the hole in the back, then, I mounted a new plug end on the cord. (More pics at bottom)

Humidity controller is used to maintain the proper humidity during the drying process. — Humidity controller is used to maintaining the proper humidity during the drying process.

Step 5: I opted for the Titan EOS-1 humidity controller. I mounted it in the top chamber where the meat will be hanging and used clips to keep the cord in place as I ran it down to the bottom chamber. The plug end has another outlet on it that allows me to plug in the humidifier. The controller will turn on and off the humidifier as necessary. The ultrasonic humidifier is important as it will immediately add humidity into the air when the controller turns it on. It will also use the water much slower than a regular humidifier. Note, use distilled water in the humidifier to reduce buildup and keep things more maintenance-free. I have heard feedback about non-digital controllers being difficult to dial in properly. That is probably true. I spent a good amount of time with the knob setting it to be right. I also realize that once we hang the product in the fridge, it will add humidity quite a bit. Keep in mind, you will be adjusting things later on depending on how much is hanging in the chamber.

Temperature controller to turn the fridge on and off keeping temperature consistent. — Temperature controller to turn the fridge on and off keeping the temperature consistent.

Step 6:

Next up is a temperature controller. I opted for this basic Johnson Controls temperature controller and cost about $60. It’s been working very reliably. It has a cord that plugs in, and just like the humidity controller, it also has another outlet on the plug end that the refrigerator plugs in to. I mounted the temperature control unit on the outside of the fridge and only the probe runs inside via the same hole that the power cord from my electrical box comes out. Set the refrigerator on its lowest temperature setting. If you have two different dials (one for the fridge and one for the freezer) set them both on their lowest setting. Not, when you adjust the temperature on the controller, it will cycle the fridge on and off keeping the temperature constant. I have burned this in for a month while I was messing with the humidity control, and the temperature has been spot on. The fridge does not even need to turn on and off very often. Literally, no problems thus far with temperature control. Now, humidity control is another story.

20131222_153120 — Digital temperature and humidity readings. I opted for an alarm if mine gets out of range.

Step 7:

Finally, I drilled a hole through the front door that allowed me to fit the probe in from the digital display on the front of the fridge. I used this Extech Hygro-Thermometer for my purposes.

It’s so important that temperature and humidity are monitored during the meat drying process. Depending on what you are drying, whole muscle or meat stuffed into casings, it’s important to make sure the outside of the casing does not dry and harden. This effectively seals off the only area where the moisture inside the product can escape. Here is where the harmful bacteria come in and can not only spoil the product… but kill you. Let’s avoid botulism and other unwanted nasty’s by considering all we need to consider ahead of time.

I spent a good deal reading before venturing into curing meats and you should too. There were a few good books I’ve read, and these two Charcuterie and Salumi by Ruhlman & Polcyn are very good.

Top rack for hanging meats. Notice the analog hygrometer on the back wall. — Top rack for hanging meats. Notice the analog hygrometer on the back wall and the regular thermometer at left.

Step 7:

Here we’ve hung a rack up top that will be used to hang various products in the chamber to dry. I chose a rack so that I had a lot of options when fitting different products inside.

Also, notice the temperature probe coming out the top of the center bar running vertically up the back of the fridge. Above and to the right is an analog hygrometer on the back wall. It’s great that we have a digital reading on the front of the fridge, but it makes so much sense to have another reading that we can look at when we open the door. I can say that both the digital reading and the analog dial inside have dramatically different readings from each other. So, I bought a cheap calibration kit to test the readings.

Humidity calibration of both instruments.

Calibrating humidity instruments

The Boveda humidity calibration kit was like $7-8. It has a wet-nap looking pouch that you place in the provided bag and guarantees a humidity of 75% in the pouch. I placed the analog dial, and the probe of the digital instrument in the bag and let them sit for 48 hours.

At 75% humidity, the analog dial read 82% and the digital instrument read 71%. It’s kind of sad really… so, I have to note those differences and take them into consideration when taking humidity readings from either one.

So, that’s about it. I let this setup “burn in” for about a month. During that time, I have made small adjustments to the humidity controller to get it to where I need. Again, I realize that once a product is inside, there will need to be other arbitrary adjustments. As I also mentioned, temperature control is perfect so far. I attribute this to leaving the gasket of the doors intact. Keeping some circulation in the fridge is also important so I put a small fan in the bottom of the fridge that will kick on and off by a timer. The rest is just tweaking things as they come.

I will report back after I have a product in the chamber. See the pics below for more detailed pics of and explanations of the process.

Fan, humidifier and power block in the bottom.

Top chamber with temperature probe, hygrometer and humidity controller.

Cord and temperature probe wire coming in from the back of the fridge.

Wires run and strapped down to be out of the way.

New plug end mounted to power block after running through fridge.

Power block mounted in bottom of fridge.

Analog hygrometer provides another humidty reading.

Hole through the front door for digital probe to enter.

Alcohol wash testing for varroa in beehive

February 3, 2014 by Jason 2 Comments

I took advantage of the warm day on Saturday after a week of freezing temperatures to check on the beehives. It was a bitter-sweet day, because I have some hives that are really strong and looking good, but I lost two. It’s a sad sight for a beekeeper when one hive is bustling and the other has nothing happening.

I brought the two hives home and went through them. I broke them down and noted all the obvious things. How much honey, if any, was in it… was there any moisture on the lid? I then took two samples of bees from each hive and put them into a cup with 72% rubbing alcohol. I kept one sample for myself to do my own alcohol wash, and the other sample will be sent off to Beltsville Bee Lab Monday morning. (* Update, bee lab results are back, see them at the bottom of this post) I like to make sure my methods of measurement still come up with numbers that are similar to what I get back from a lab. Since I also can’t test for things like nosema, it just makes sense to me to send some out.

Bees frozen in time. Note queen in the center.

I ran my own tests tonight and, as I suspected, I’m going with varroa mites again. 7 mites per 100 on one hive and 4 per 100 on the other. It’s funny how you can have two hives right next to each other… seemingly identical in strength, using the same equipment and on the same forage, but each wildly different. The hive next to it is still very strong… in fact, opening the top of the hive, the numbers already show the queen has been laying, and new bees have emerged.

Broken down to its simplest form, we want to get the number of mites per 100 bees. I up my samples to take a ‘larger cross-section’ to 300 bees (about a half-cup of bees.) In this case, you would divide the result by 3 to get the number of mites per 100 bees.

If you are taking a sample of bees from your hive mid-season, you want nurse bees (shaken off a frame from the center of the brood) into a jar for testing. Make sure your queen is not in the sample. When mites emerge from a cell, they will either crawl into another cell to start the process over, or they will crawl on to the nearest bee and find a tender spot on them to suck on the bee’s hemolymph. Since the nurse bees are the ones that are taking care of the brood and usually always near the center of the brood nest, these are the bees that would most likely have the most mites on them. The final number is then doubled (to account for the mites that are still in the brood, and not on just the sample we took)

If you are processing a deadout (as I am in the pictures below) we are taking dead bees from wherever they are, but usually, there will be a big dead cluster of bees on the frames (frozen in time, see pics below). These bees are the better ones to sample than those laying on the bottom board. Of course, if you are doing a wash from a deadout (a hive that likely had no brood) then there would be no need to double the final number. So here is it, for those of you that Googled looking for the formula to process your data from an alcohol wash on your beehive:

If we took a 300 bee sample (about a half-cup) from a live colony during the season:

Number of mites ÷ 3 = Mites per 100 bees x 2 (to account for mites still in the brood) = Total mites per 100 bees in the hive

If we took a 300 bee sample (about a half-cup) from a deadout during the winter:

Number of mites ÷ 3 = Total mites per 100 bees in the hive (no need to double the result since there is no brood in a winter deadout. You will check your frames for brood, of course.)

Also, do not confuse adult bees that died head first in a cell with brood. Take into consideration what a high mite count is for you. That number is going to differ from one beekeeper to another based on the general strength of the hive, genetics of your stock and maybe even location. One of my mentors has bees that can tolerate a much higher mite load than I can. I am taking note of this kind of data so that I can understand over time what a high mite count is for my bees.

* Got the bee lab results back and our mite testing methods are solid! The results I came up with in my own alcohol wash correlate well with the results I got back. I was right. These hives were taken out by varroa. Now, we just need to get set up to check for nosema spores. See the picture below.

The results back from Beltsville bee lab. Number higher than 2-3 mites per 100 bees are reason to be concerned. — The results back from Beltsville bee lab. Number higher than 2-3 mites per 100 bees are a reason to be concerned.

Click here to see a video of a deadout similar to the one that these bees were sampled from

View some pictures

Bees looking to be getting moisture from cement blocks.

Laying out the tools to check hives and process deadouts.

Bees frozen in time. Note queen in the center and capped honey stores on the side.

Thick crpet of bees on bottom board of a deadout.

Taking bee samples from bottom board of a deadout.

Shaking bees that were soaked in alcohol to make mites drop.

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

Dishwasher is not friendly to aluminum

January 2, 2014 by Jason 5 Comments

Well, after a vigorous night of sausage making, I tried to take a quick way out by throwing my grinder attachments and trays into the dishwasher. I have always washed them by hand up until now. The other night, I finished up the stuffing and smoking around 2am, and was ready to get some sleep. It didn’t register to me at the time that my grinder attachments were aluminum, and I’m well aware that putting aluminum in to the dishwasher would do this because I have done it before. It’s the detergents and chemicals in the soaps being blasted at the aluminum at high temperatures.

But the deed was done, I opened the dishwasher this morning to find all the aluminum had turned a dark “gunmetal gray,” almost black! Reading around, I found everything from using citric acids, to vinegar, and even cream of tartar. I tried the vinegar and it turns out it needs a harsher acid. Cream of Tartar was next, however, this only did the trick when boiling the parts in a mixture of the tartar and the water. Even still, when it came out, the darkness was gone, but so was my shiny “stainless steel” sheen that it had previously. Also, the finish still had traces of gray colors. Here’s where I took out the steel wool and gave it some elbow grease. This did help. It buffed out the variations but it still looked like a “brushed” stainless steel instead of original shine of the aluminum. This was still acceptable to me. I happen to prefer the brushed look over the glossy look when it comes to my sink faucets and the like.

Recipe:

2 tablespoons of cream of tartar to 1 quart of water

Process: Boil the parts in the water solution for at least 10 minutes. Take out and submerge in cool water just enough to be able to handle it. Take the steel wool and polish to your desired sheen. I also tried a magic eraser. It didn’t work, so don’t bother. I did go as far as putting the polished parts back in to boil and repeated the process thinking it might improve the finish. I little more sheen was achieved, but I’m pretty confident it was just from the second round of polishing with the steel wool. My advice would be to just boil the parts once, and then polish with the steel wool to the sheen you want. The more you do it, the deeper you are polishing and therefore reaching the original shine of the aluminum. There were also recommendations to try SOS pads. Since these are pretty much steel wool with soap in it, it’s worth a try, but I again would wonder about the detergents in the pads. It’s not a fun process, but it did make the finish much less dreaded. The outcome wasn’t ideal, but it was perfectly acceptable. See some of the before and after pics below, and good luck.