Weekend before xmas

Chain-sawmill

I finally got to do some milling with my chainsaw!  I really want to get a bandsaw-sawmill, but for now this will do.  I sawed 5 boards out of a piece of the maple I cut down last year.  I adjusted the mill to give me 1.25" boards - approx.   I used the rip-chain on the Stihl saw.  Worked well, although it can be a bit tedious and frankly holding the chainsaw throttle open would surely limit how much of this a guy could take! 

This shows where the log I sawed up used to be - LOL!  You can see the ended slabs from the log.

5 1.25" boards. Well, actually, just 4 1.25" boards and one just under an inch.

It's a bit rough - I am not sure if this is a normal finish on a chain-sawmilled board. These will have to be planed.  They should turn out nice

The rip-chain makes quite a bit finer sawdust then the regular chain.

More fermented soda

I left my champagne yeast and the filler tube stuff down in the city, but I none-the-less was able to bottle 2 bottles of root-beer and 2 of orange.  I used the Montrachet yeast - I hope it doesn't cause problems!

 

Pyracantha Jelly

I got the pyracantha (and all of the other berries) out of the freezer so that I could make jellies this weekend.  I started with the pyracantha since this is something I have no experience with.  I looked at a bunch of recipes I found for it on the web and finally settled on this one.  One thing I noticed was that many of the recipes added a lot of water to the berries to extract their juices.    Many of the recipes use only a very small amount for the berries and stressed not pressing the berries.  I also noted that many recipes added grapefruit juice and one even noted that the firethorn berries taste is very subtle in the jelly and that the grapefruit can easily overwhelm it.  With that in mind, I opted for a recipe that used LOTS of berries!  Even so, I used 5lbs of berries with 5 C of water, boiled them for 20 minutes and then crushed them with a potato masher (off of the heat).  Then I put them in a jelly bag and squeezed out as much juice as I could without getting too annoyed.  I ended up with 5 C of juice.  Yep, 5 C - the same amount of water that I added!  But the juice was definitely not water, I could tell it actually had a good amount of pectin in it.  I added the lemon juice (3 tbsp) and pectin and 5 C of sugar (following the jelly prep directions, of course).  I was barely able to get all the jelly in the jars as it was setting fast!  I got 8 half-pint jars of jelly.  The taste is very mild - kind of floral, maybe a bit like a wildflower based honey.  It is pretty.  I honestly don't think I will make this again.

 

Pyracantha update:

OK - totally unexpected, this stuff did NOT set!  Still like a syrup in the jars!  I swear I was afraid it was going to set before I finished putting it in the jars!   What happened?  I will reprocess, but I am going to wait until this evening.  I should also note that I thought about reprocessing the apple jam I made early this year, but... I went to get it from storage and lo-and-behold, the stuff is now jelled!  So now I am wondering if this pyracantha stuff will jell after a week or so?  I read that some jellies, like pepper jellies, can take up to a week to jell.  Hmmm.  I am concerned that I may have a bad batch of pectin.  The last sure-jell pectin I bought was in a pack of 3 (I think).  The first I used from that pack was the apple jam.  The 2nd was this pyracantha.  Should I risk using the last pack?   

Pyracantha update 2:

I reprocessed the Pyracantha jelly.  I added a full package of the sure-jell pectin for sugar free use.  This time it set nicely.  I lost about 3/4 of a cup of jelly to processing.  Ended up with 7 half-pints.   Still tastes "blah".  There is no reason to make this again!

Canning shelf progress in city home & other stuff

Canning Shelf

I was able to get the canning shelf mostly compete - I still need to paint them.  Painting is an issue since its now too cold outside.   There isn't enough room the paint the shelf inside the house.  I may just paint the actual shelf boards themselves and leave the framing unpainted for now.  I braced the sides too, after I took these pictures.

Making fermented soda

I received my orders from the brew stores earlier this week.  I received the flavorings and champagne yeast that I needed to make fermented soda!  So I whipped up a gallon batch of root beer and a gallon batch of cherry.  The recipe is:  1 tbsp of flavoring, 1/8 tsp yeast, 2.5 cups sugar, 1 gallon water.  I bottled 2 bottles (2 liter bottles) each flavor in old soda bottles.  I got new plastic caps, but they don't fir right on the old soda bottles - the safety seal gets in the way of the flange.  If I removed the safety seal, they do fit well though.  I put the bottles in the master bathroom shower - on the floor.  They are working slowly - its rather cool in this house - about 68F.  The recipes say it should take 4-6 days to reach a decent carbonation.  So far its been about 3 days and they are definitely working, bit not ready yet.  Since the plastic bottles are fairly flexible, I am not too worried that they will explode.

Roller/Conveyor for woodwork

After my experiences using the "lunchbox" wood planer that last couple of weekend I am convinced I need a set on infeed/outfeed roller-conveyors to keep the wood from checking so much.  I found a nice set on woodcraft and ordered them.   They say it will be quite some time before I receive them though.

Sawmill thoughts

I still haven't heard anything from Bill DeFay - they gentleman in Michigan who I am trying to buy a sawmill from.  I have been checking around locally (to my farm to PA) and found a couple stores about 30 mins from the farm that I want talk with regarding their sawmills,  The one store is a resaleer for woodmizer - they other sells woodmizer and Timbery.  The woodmizer I am looking at is the LT15.  It is a bit expensive for that type of mill.  I am also considering the Timbery mills.  I am thinking i can save about $2,500 by not buying the trailer option - I have a trailer!  I guess I need to contact Mr. DeFay again before I get one locally, although it looks very unlikely that he has completed my order yet.  He hasn't even contacted me to discuss the build in over a month!  I am itching to mill and I have time now!