The Self Sufficient Urbanite

all is not lost

2010-12-14T10:52:00.001-08:00

We're on hiatus, not offline. We’ve been spending a lot of time looking for a new canvas upon which to paint new stories. The search is over and the SSU will soon have a new home and an infinite number of new projects. So stay tuned for a brand new set of DIY adventures. In the meantime, try and figure out what’s going on in this picture.

How to Recondition Leather

2010-10-16T06:21:00.000-07:00

Have a beat up leather chair? Belt? Seat in your car? Briefcase? Gloves? Leather that isn't taken care of will crack, ruining the item. But well maintained leather will last practically forever.
Here I have a leather chair that had a battle with a cat. But it's not as hard as it seems to make this chair look like new (or at least cool and distressed). You can use Lexol, a commercial product, but I had an old tin of mink oil around the house. Mink oil, which is the rendered fat of minks, replaces the natural oils in the leather. Just rub it in and watch the damage disappear. The lower half of this chair arm has been treated. The whole thing looked like the top section before I started!

MAGIC Silver Polish!

2010-09-29T16:44:00.000-07:00

Have you seen those magic silver polishing things on TV? Some metallic slab that you put in a bucket of water and all the tarnish on your silver magically disappears? Well it's not magic and you don't need to buy anything. I can pretty much guarantee you have everything you need in your kitchen right now.

The "magic" is really ion exchange. Take a piece of aluminum foil and put it in the bottom of a heat resistant dish. Boil some water and add some salt and a spoonful or two of baking soda. Put the silver item in the dish on the aluminum foil (so they touch) and then add the liquid. The tarnish will disappear in a few minutes!

How does this work? I had to look it up, but essentially the tarnish is when the silver reacts with air to form a coating of silver sulfide, which is black. Silver polishes are abrasive and remove a layer of silver with the tarnish. But it is possible to turn the silver sulfide back into silver! With baking soda and aluminum! This works because aluminum has a higher affinity for sulfur than does silver. When you dip tarnished silver in the baking soda solution, the sulfur atoms are liberated from the silver and are transfered to the aluminum. Heating the water simply speeds the process.

Do you have any idea what chemicals are in silver polish? Me neither. I'd much rather go with a solution that is non-toxic, cheaper and much easier.

The Found Sewing Machine Table

2010-09-13T17:43:00.000-07:00

Remember this sorry looking antique sewing machine I found a few weeks ago? Sure someone covered it in gross white paint, but this is an antique treadle sewing machine table. And not just any sewing machine, but a very rare New Ideal sewing machine, made in England. It seems a shame that such a beautiful piece of history should end up in the landfill. Well needless to say... it didn't. Over the past few weeks I've spent countless hours stripping layer after layer of paint from this antique. I used citrus-strip, which is the less toxic paint stripping alternative. I also used plastic gloves and a respirator because of the nasty fumes and the possibility of lead paint. Never, never, never sand (or even scrape) lead paint. It can release lead particles into the air, into your lungs and onto surfaces of your home (to be inhaled later). It's toxic to adults but extremely toxic to children, so watch out.
So, after removing all the paint from every little nook and cranny, the table was ready for sanding. I worked up to a 220 grit and suddenly you could tell that this piece had a beautiful oak top and pine drawers.
And after a few coats of gel stain and varnish, the results were incredible. A piece of trash turned into a fine antique anyone would be proud to have in their home.

Decorate with Stencils

2010-08-18T17:03:00.000-07:00

Stenciling is an easy and inexpensive way to add some flair to your house. Stenciled designs look good in the bathroom but can also create amazing effects in your bedroom, kitchen and other areas of the home. And best of all, it's cheap! All you need is an old sponge, a piece of cardboard or plastic, an exacto knife and some left over paint.

First pick the design you'd like to use. It can be a bird, animal, stars, geometric patterns, whatever you want. For this project I decided to do a viking ship! I printed out a picture from the internet and traced it on a piece of heavy cardboard. You can also use a piece of heavy plastic which has the advantage of not absorbing paint and eventually disintegrating. Cut out the pattern with an exacto knife and you're ready to go.
Dip the sponge in the paint and dab it in the stencil, filling in the pattern. Using gloves will help keep the paint off your hands. Don't use a paint brush which will have a tendency to bleed outside of the edges of the stencil. You can cut the edge of the stencil to the distance you want between each stenciling. That way you wont have to measure the distance between each stenciling- all you need to do is lay the stencil next to the last stenciling. But be sure to keep it level! (unless you're doing a random pattern like stars) Snapping a chalk line around the room can really save time here. Work around the room and you'll end up with something like this. Pretty cool looking! And a project which you can do for little or no cost with some things you probably have lying around the house.

Back to Brewing

2010-08-16T15:12:00.001-07:00

It's been an incredibly busy summer! So many projects I've actually been too busy to document them! So with two months of no blog posts the first will be a somewhat mundane one (at least for this blog)- brewing beer.

I have a bunch of malt and hops left so I decided a malty IPA was in order. For a ten gallon batch I started with a couple pounds of Caripils and Biscuit specialty grains. Then about 7 or 8 pitcherfulls (about 12-14 pounds) of dried malt extract. For boiling hops it was 6 ounces of cascade hops and for aroma it was 2 ounces each of of Spalt and Columbus hops. The wort looked like molten copper!

I had a smack-pack of Wyeast Northwest Ale which was about six months expired. It took about 24 hours in a yeast starter to come alive but i was able to resurrect it. And now the beer is bubbling away...

Stay tuned for some more fun and crafty projects. It's been a busy summer and I have some writing to do.

Kitchen Counters, for Free!

2010-06-13T18:19:00.000-07:00

A while back I found a very cool maple butcher block counter top in the trash. It had some paint splattered on it and needed a good sanding, but I couldn't imagine why someone would throw out such a beautiful piece of wood. So I grabbed it and started thinking of a project!
After much deliberation, I decided to build a new counter for my kitchen. But just sanding the piece wouldn't do. Because the board was a rectangle, it would have stuck out into the room. To make it fit the kitchen I decided to round off the corner with my router and a swing jig, a jig I built for another project where I needed a precise round cut. The swing jig is a piece of thin plywood which attaches to the router and rotates on a nail, like a compass. But because I was making a quarter round circle, the center of my circle needed to be on the edge of the board. If I put the nail in the board (even the bottom so you wouldn't see the nail hole) then it would not be the direct center of the circle and my circle would be more than 90 degrees, 25% of a circle.

To make sure my cut was exactly 25% of the circle, I pinned a nail between the butcher block and another piece of wood with a clamp to hold it in place. Done this way, the center of my quarter round circle would be at the edge of the piece of wood and I would be ensured a perfect quarter round circle.
Because the block was super-hard maple, and 1.5 inches thick, it would have been very hard to make the cut in one pass. Here is a pic of the board after one of two passes.
With the board cut, I took the belt sander to the top and sides to remove the paint and grime. Then I took a quarter round bit and ran it along the top of the board to round over the edge. Then I took a palm sander to the block to give it a fine sand.

The block will sit on a 2x3 support studs screwed to the studs behind the drywall. The other side will sit on another support against the stove and brick wall. Notice I'm checking for level!
The final result!
Such a beautiful and all natural counter top! And for free! Can you imagine if this beautiful counter top was rotting in a landfill somewhere? What a shame that would be! Just like the custom cabinetry (for free) I wrote about a few weeks ago, we need to think about reusing building materials. Just because something isn't going to be used again for it's original purpose doesn't mean you should throw it away. Be creative, save money and reuse it for something!

Planting the 2010 Urban Garden

2010-05-26T03:55:00.001-07:00

Actually I planted the 2010 urban garden a few weeks ago when it was just starting to get warm, and I'm just a little late in posting the pics. But wait until I get around to posting pictures of how quickly it's growing!

Most of my perennials didn't survive the winter, but the strawberries seem to be doing just fine. Unfortunately I doesn't look like my hops made it. I decided to plans a new perennial- raspberry bushes!Beans, peas and lettuce in the ground.
I was also lucky enough to find a bag of marble chips on the sidewalk near by apartment. Perfect. Because of the lack of sunlight in my garden, I seem to have the most luck with herbs... and I plant a lot of them!
I also have luck with small fruits and vegetables, like small tomatoes and hot peppers. I don't seem to get enough sun for anything larger. Stay tuned for the vegetable transplants!

Refinishing a Leather Chair

2010-05-23T08:30:00.001-07:00

Last month I found a leather chair in the garbage near my apartment in New York City. The chair was looking a little tired- the leather was worn and cracked and the finish and glue had failed. But the chair had amazing potential. Here an overview of how I refinished this chair.

To start, I fixed the spreader bar joints on the bottom of the chair. The chair was constructed with dowel joints, which is a type of butt joint (where one piece butts up against another) but with a dowel going into each piece for added glue surface area and added strength. Unfortunately the glue had failed and a piece of the chair was sitting on top of the seat when I found it. Most of the joints I could simply pull apart, clean and insert new glue, but several of them I had to drill out the old dowels, drill new dowel holes and custom cut new dowels pegs. Then I clamped the chair together and let the glue dry.

Next it's time for refinishing. Here's a picture of the finish, juxtaposed with the already sanded cross-bar. Not looking very good...I used a palm sander and lots of hand sanding to remove the old finish. This was difficult and time consuming because the round button details and because I was working so close to leather and brass tacks. I did not want to sand and damage these details.
Removing the stain from the ridge details on the legs also took some doing. Fortunately the stain was so old it came off rather easily.
After working my way up to 220 grit sand paper and wiping the piece down with a tack cloth to remove the dust, I use a wipe on stain. I'm a big fan of the Bartley's furniture stains. They look great and produce consistent results.
The leather also had a nasty crack in the seat back section. To repair the crack, I took a sacrificial piece of leather (unfortunately black was all I had) and used leather glue to bond it to the rear of the leather. This will prevent the crack from separating any further.
Then I rubbed the leather sections with mink oil, a natural oil derived from the fat of minks. This soaks deep into the leather, conditioning and nourishing it.
Quite a handsome chair! Not bad for a few hours of work! I had all the materials on hand, so this cost almost nothing to repair.

How to Hand Carve a Whale

2010-05-20T17:40:00.000-07:00

Nothing says coastal New England like carved whales and carved Cape Cod signs. Traveling up and down the coast, this imagery is almost as common as clam shell driveways, lobster pots and buoys. In this post, I'll describe how to carve a wooden whale by hand. I'm carving my whale out of pine shelving I found in the trash near my apartment. It's relativly clear of knots and because it's pine, it's easy to carve. Plus it's free!

First I glued the boards together, clamping them tightly.
I decided to carve a Minke whale. To get the right pattern, I printed a picture off the internet and blew it up on the photocopier. Then I traced the outline onto the board. I cut the shape on the jig saw. To shape the whale, I removed material from the edges, working my way towards the middle of the piece. Always be sure to carve with the grain, removing a small amount of material with each pass. Always use sharp, high quality carving chisels. Sharpen them frequently and if you're carving hardwoods, sharpen them very frequently. I also tapered the whale from the front to the back, just like the body of a real whale.
After shaping, I sanded, sanded and sanded some more. Then I primed it. Bare wood always looks better when it's primed before it's painted.
And the final product!
This project isn't as hard as it seems and you can make it with scrap pine you have laying around. I had black and white paint already, so the cost for this project was essentially $0. And what a handsome whale to display in your home!

Custom Cabinetry, for Free

2010-05-17T11:37:00.001-07:00

Custom cabinetry, for free? Sure! With the advent of cheap, flat-packed furniture from stores like Ikea, there is almost always great raw materials in the trash which can be repurposed into custom furniture. Ikea fancies itself as an environmnetal steward, but cheap furnature also means people have no qualms about throwing it away.

I've been thinking of building a custom cabinet for my apartment and have been on the look out for some good material. I found an Ikea wardrobe cabinet in the trash last week and grabbed it. I took it apart and saved the laminated particleboard. After removing the hardware, I cut the pieces to size. This is a custom piece, so I designed the cabinet to fit a specific space. Particle board is flat, stable and easy to cut. Measure twice, cut once!
The boards were secured to each other using dry wall screws. Pilot holes are necessary to get through the lamination. The cabinet was very easy to assemble.
For structural integrity, I tacked a backing sheet to the rear of the cabinet. This will keep the cabinet square and will make it a lot stronger. The boards weren't quite wide enough, leaving a gap in the middle (hey it's free material) but I patched that with a spare piece. No one will see it as it's on the back of the cabinet.
Then I primed, painted and installed the cabinet. It's a nice looking custom shelf! The only thing I paid for was screws and paint!

Street Find- Antique Sewing Machine Table

2010-04-24T09:22:00.001-07:00

Possibly one of my best street finds ever! Who would throw out an antique sewing machine and table? Probably the same kind of person who would paint it white. But low and behold what do I find but a beautiful antique Ideal brand sewing machine out for the trash! There isn't much on the Ideal Sewing Machine Company online, but apparently it was a British company which operated in the 1920s. The machine is missing the belt which runs from the treadle to the machine, but everything else seems to be functioning. Stay tuned as I fix up what will certainly be a beautiful piece.

The Cyser Project- Bottling Time

2010-04-23T13:01:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I made a batch of cyser, which is fermented apple cider and honey. The cyser has been clearing and stabilizing for several months and is now ready for the bottle. I'm bottling in champagne bottles, which I will cap with push-in caps and wires attached with a pair of pliers. Couldn't be easier! The cyser will be carbonated, so I held off on the metibisulfite and added about half a cup of priming sugar (mixed with hot water) to the cyser prior to bottling. Can't wait to see how this turns out!

How to Replace Differential Fluid

2010-04-20T16:54:00.000-07:00

Last fall I tackled the job of replacing the power train fluids on my Jeep. Unfortunately I ran out of time and was only able to top off the differential fluid. All the guides I could find on the internet recommended removing the cover plate to drain the oil and replacing the gasket. I didn't want to go down this road. My differential wasn't leaking, so I didn't need to replace the gasket. And I was a little worried about shearing off the rusty bolts. So I figured out a workaround- siphon out the old fluid. First, pry off the rubber plug.
To remove the fluid I'm using a siphon tube with a pressure ball. You don't want to start the siphon with your mouth! It's a good idea to do this on a warm day or after driving to warm up the fluid, as it will flow better.
When all the fluid is removed, add the new fluid to the fill hole until full to the hole level.
You probably won't be able to remove every last drop of oil, but the siphon method will remove the vast majority of the fluid. It's also much easier and less messy!

How to Replace a Muffler

2010-04-19T04:42:00.000-07:00

Several months ago I posted about quick fixes to muffler emergencies. This slows the decline but doesn't solve the problem. So now that it's warm outside again, I decided it was time to replace my failing muffler. I'll be doing this replacement on a Jeep Cherokee. Your car will almost certainly be different. But if you're fairly handy and have some basic tools, this is a job you can easily do yourself. The "discount" muffler store down the street wanted $325 to replace my muffler. I did this job for $105. Repairing your car yourself can save a lot of money!

The first step is to remove the old muffler. Assuming you don't have an acetylene torch, (as I do not), an angle grinder with a metal cutting disk will get the job done. Angle grinders are relatively inexpensive tools and are useful for a wide variety of projects. My muffler is attached to the car by one hanger and by the connection to the catalytic converter. First I'll cut the hanger and remove the hook from the rubber grommet.
Then I'll cut the welds that hold the muffler on the catalytic converter. First I cut the muffler pipe itself and then I cut the piece left on the catalytic converter, which came free easily. The old muffler was now free from the car and easily removed and sent to the metal recycling center.

I borrowed a pipe expanding tool from a freind, but I did not end up needing it. If the catalytic converter outflow pipe had been bent or crushed, this tool can expand the pipe so it fits snugly inside the muffler inflow pipe. I had a snug joint so I didn't need this tool. But if you do not have a snug fit, you can borrow this tool from an auto parts store with a tool rental program.

Now that I have a snug fit, I'll apply muffler joint sealant. With the heat of the engine, this stuff will expand and form a tight joint. You don't want any exhaust gases escaping from the joint! And because I won't be welding this muffler, I need to pay special attention to the joints. Wear gloves when applying this stuff. I have a feeling it's made of nasty chemicals.
Next I'll slide on the new muffler and bolt it down with some automotive U bolts. I'll use two clamps on each joint. Interestingly, the inflow used 2 1/4" inch clamps and the outflow used 2" clamps. Also make sure to reattach the muffler hanger to the rubber grommet.
Since I have a car that had very similar parts for about 15 production years, the parts are easy to find, cheap and custom made. The exhaust pipe was pre-bent and the muffler slides right on with no hassle. And what a difference a new muffler makes! Not only is the car much quieter, but it runs so much smoother. Quick acceleration and drives like new! They always say that a muffler is mandatory not just for sound control but because it provides back-pressure on the engine. You can really tell the difference when you install a new muffler. The car has more power and drives like a dream!

Street Find- Leather Chair!

2010-04-15T17:25:00.001-07:00

Walking down the street today I came across a beautiful leather chair in the trash. The glue had failed on all the stretcher joints (the cross members on the bottom), but that's a relatively easy fix. The wood sections will need to sanded and re-stained. The seat-back leather has a tear and the leather will also need some conditioning. But this should be a pretty handsome chair with a little work!

News Review

2010-04-02T06:28:00.000-07:00

Coyotes invade Manhattan! Uptown and downtown! I think they're trying to flank us.

The paper of record has done a few stories about urbanites who were hoodwinked into doing manual labor for free, or sometimes even paying to do it. Like migrant farm workers, working at a vineyard in the winter or grunt work at breweries. Well, if anyone wants to come over and pull some weeds and clean my brew kettles, I have openings available!

Manhattan Meadery and New York's urban wineries get a shout-out in am New York!

If your bedroom has a view of the apartment building next door, don't despair. With rising sea levels you could have a view of the Hudson pretty soon.

The flowers and the bees. Gettin' it done.

Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution- Make America less fat. Here's the best advice I've ever heard- "move more, eat less".

China's environmental black thumb expands to water. Not just the Three Gorges, now it's drinking water too. Prediction- access to clean water will be the biggest environmental and natural resources issue, as well as source of conflict, in the next twenty years.

The U.S. gets serious about car emissions and fuel economy.

Huge greenhouses make high-tech tomatoes all year long. This sounds like where our food will come from after the Apocalypse. I wonder what Michael Pollan would say about this?

Grow your own horseradish. It's almost gardening season!

The E.P.A. moves to limit the controversial practice of mountaintop removal coal mining.

An amusing and rambling discussion of insects in New York City.

How to Replace a Car Stereo

2010-03-30T15:25:00.000-07:00

Car stereo systems are serious hobbies for some people. This post isn't for those people.

Some newer cars have complex stereos that double as navigation systems, computers and a host of other high-tech features. This post isn't for those people either.

But for those folks with older cars that have poorly functioning or non-functioning (i.e. mine) car stereos, upgrading is an inexpensive and easy way to bring music to your life.

If you're buying a new stereo, one of the best places to start is Crutchfield. They not only have a great selection of car stereos and a very knowledgeable staff, they also include installation instructions, mounting hardware and brackets that fit your car and the stereo you purchased. All cars are different and many stereos are different. It'll show you how to disassemble your dashboard, remove the old stereo, wire and install the new stereo and then put everything back together.

In this project, I'll be replacing a Sony CD head unit with a Sony tape deck. This may seem like a downgrade, but the CD player has stopped working completely and with a tape deck you can easily input your iPod. (Check out the adapter here- 57 cents!!) Plus I had an old but working tape deck so the change out would be free. Driving in silence is peaceful, but on long car trips it gets pretty boring!
Before beginning work, it's good practice to disconnect the car battery. This will ensure that there are no live wires which could short or electrocute you. To remove the old head unit on my Jeep, I needed to remove the plastic dashboard cover to gain access to the retaining bolts. On my Jeep, it snaps on around the climate controls and the stereo and with screws over the instrument cluster. This is where Crutchfield instructions can come in handy, as it's often not clear how to gain access to the stereo mounting points. Car makers don't usually like to leave a bunch of visible screws that can be an eye sore.
Once the trim is removed, it's time to remove the actual unit. Car stereos are mounted in different ways; some slide into a factory sleeve and attach via clips (which require a specialized knife-like grabbing tool to be inserted into each side of the unit). My unit is attached with brackets which screw onto the side of the unit and bend 90 degrees to match up with the mounting posts on the dashboard. Switching them over to the new unit was fast and easy.

With a rainbow of wires and strange clips, wiring can be a complex and confusing task. I can't speak for all stereos or cars, but my old Sony head unit attached straight to the factory wiring harness, as did my new Sony head unit. So it was as simple as pinching the side of the harness, removing the plug and installing it on the new head unit. This makes the connections for power, speakers, etc. The antenna is separate. It's a thick plug which pulls straight out of the unit.

To install the new unit, you may need to jimmy the wires in the back so the unit slides all the way in. In my Jeep, the unit is not only secured by the side screws, but there is also a receiving clip in the dash which slides into a notch on the top of the unit. Be sure to make this connection if it applies to your vehicle.
At this point it probably makes sense to test out the stereo to make sure it works. Assuming it does, simply snap the dash back in place and crank some tunes.

How to Base Grind Skis

2010-03-29T15:27:00.000-07:00

I've covered ski tuning in the past, which is the process of sharpening edges, filling gouges and applying new wax to a pair of skis. But every once in a while you need to overhaul your skis, known as a base grind. There isn't much information online about DIY base grinding, but the principle is straightforward and with some basic woodworking tools, you may be able to do it yourself. This post is about how I did a base grind on my skis. Ski-techs may recoil at this, and use at your own risk (skis are expensive!), but this worked for me and saved a bunch of money at the ski shop.
First it is useful to understand how skis are constructed. Skis are built around a core, which is either made of foam or laminated strips of wood with specific flex properties. The core is sandwiched by two composite layers (fiberglass matting, kevlar) on the top and bottom and sidewalls on the sides. On top goes a top sheet (and graphics) and on the bottom goes a base with metal edges. Everything is held together with special fiberglass resin. Simple right? Over time the bases may get badly worn. They will have gouges, they may cup and the edges may be badly worn and beveled from tuning and hard skiing. Base grinding will remove these imperfections by grinding away at the base, just like sanding removed imperfections in wood. I started by adding ptex to fill in gouges that may be deeper than I want to grind. Ptex is a super hard composite material that you light on fire and drips into gouges. It bonds with the ski base and fills in the hole. Usually you scrape the ptex level with the ski and then wax the skis normally, but there's no need when doing a base grind. As I obviously don't own an expensive stone ski base grinding machine, I'm using a variable speed belt sander. Though that belt looks like a heavy grit belt, I actually used a fine 220 grit belt on the skis. I also ran the sander at the slowest speed I could, did light and fast passes and checked the ski frequently to ensure I wasn't removing too much material. If you sand off the base of the ski you've basically ruined the pair. My pock-ridden were quickly transformed into almost new looking skis. The gouges and scraps were gone. Scraps on the sidewalls disappeared. The bases looked clean and new. I went over the side of the edges again as well, as the sander only hit the bottom of the edges.

As I removed the wax on the skis along with the imperfections, I had to apply new wax. As I was not simply rewaxing previously waxed skis, I had to use a lot of wax to ensure good, even coverage. I believe ski shops may even wax, scrape and rewax skis to ensure a good base. Look at these pretty maids, all in a row.
I skied this pair following this project and wow. The base grind really gave them another lease on life. The skis hold an edge beautifully on hard pack and track through crud beautifully. I was used to getting bounced around and skidding through hard turns. I had forgotten what these skis were like when they were new. The turns were fast and precise. Did I mention fast? I was beginning to think that these skis would need to be replaced soon but now I'm thinking I'll at least get next year out of them. Taking a belt sander to your skis sounds intimidating (but so does taking a drill!) but if you are careful and take your time, you can breath new life into a tired old pair of skis, without shelling out a good portion of a new pair of skis to pay a shop to do a base grind.

PS- here's another great DIY ski tuning and repair website.

New York City Legalizes Beekeeping!

2010-03-26T07:59:00.000-07:00

After a long and arduous battle, New York City has legalized beekeeping! Previously bees have been lumped together with so-called "hazardous animals" like lions, tigers and bears. But recently a beekeeping underground has developed in New York as folks have started keeping bees in their backyards and rooftops. The movement reflects the increased cultural awareness of where our food comes from and the role pollinators play in our food system, as well as the threats bees face from Colony Collapse Disorder.

As the founder of Manhattan Meadery and an ardent supporter of all things honey and mead related, I couldn't be happier with this news. Congrats to Just Food, New York City Beekeepers Association and everyone else who worked so hard to see the ban repealed.

Manhattan Meadery at the Master Brewers Association Meeting

2010-03-24T11:58:00.000-07:00

Manhattan Meadery was at the Master Brewers Association meeting at Brooklyn Brewery this past Monday night, and the beer flowed like wine. Through we're technically winemakers, Garrett Oliver, BB's brewmaster, invited us along as "brothers in fermentation". Brewmasters from all over the United States and all over the world were in attendance. It was great to meet so many brewers and hear about interesting fermentations from around the globe. We sampled some amazing beers from the United States, Italy, Scotland, etc. Though the notes get fuzzy as the night went on, below is a rundown of the beers served.

Firestone Walker, Paso Robles, CA- Pale ale and IPA. Generally regarded as one of the best pale ales in the US, and it certainly did not disappoint. Amazing fresh, crisp and earthy flavor.

Ala Chiarla Brewing Company, Italy- We tried the Kukumurla and Chococarubica beers. Very much European beers. Delicious and dynamic flavors- almost Belgian flavors.

Hovells, Germany- I don't remember this beer, but it was delicious.

Schofferhofer, Germany- The most amazing Hefeweizen ever. Rich fruity flavor.

Birra del Borgo, Italy- voted the Best craft brewery in Italy. They graced us with their amazing gentian root and green tea beers. They were subtle and very refreshing. They also had an Estra Re Ale which was fantastic.

Chiostro, by Piccolo Birrificio Brewers- This beer had absinthe in it. Truly one of the most interesting, and medicinal, beers I've had in a while. Fear no beer.

Hitochino, by Kiuchi Brewery Japan- We tried several of their beers, the most notable was the Hitochino, or their ginger beer. The brewmaster explained that Japanese ginger is more subtle and nuanced than American ginger. You could taste it in this beer. Delicious but subtle ginger flavor.

Brooklyn Special Beer- Garrett broke out some of the Woodford Reserve barrel aged secret brew. It's the Local 1 aged in Woodford whiskey barrels. And it's amazing! Not sold to the public, I thought this beer tasted like pinot noir, though I might have been the only one of that opinion.

30th Anniversary, Sierra Nevada, CA- Enough said, their beers are always delicious, and hoppy.

Exit 4, Flying Fish Brewing Company, New Jersey- The Exit 4 is a Belgian Trippel with fruity banana flavors. Nice New Jersey. Nice.

Bitter and Twisted, Old Dubh, Harviestoun Brewery, Scotland- The B&T was a great flavorful blond with nice hops. The Old Dubh, the brewmaster explained, is thick like their other Engine Oil line of beer, but is aged in whiskey barrels. It was dark and mysterious. And delicious.

Off Kilter Stout and Oyster Stout, Porterhouse Brewing Company, Dublin, Ireland- The Off Kilter was a decidedly mild stout and a pleasant surprise. The Oyster Stout is, yes, actually brewed with fresh oysters. It was good, though I'm not sure how much shellfish survived the boil. I think I should make a steak beer...

Stay tuned for Manhattan Meadery's next big thing. A honey beer, called Braggot, which will be released by a Brooklyn Brewery and Manhattan Meadery joint venture. Stay tuned and get excited.

Streetfind: Artwork!

2010-03-01T08:01:00.000-08:00

Walking to work today and low and behold what do I find...? A beautiful hand painted landscape painting. It looks to be a small old cemetery in a rural farm field. I'm not an art expert, but this is a beautiful piece of artwork. This wouldn't look out of place (to me) if I saw it in a museum. Someone very talented created this- thankfully I was able to rescue it from the landfill!

Cyser Status Update

2010-02-25T04:50:00.001-08:00

The cyser project has run into a few snags. So when fermentation slowed dramatically today, only three and a half days into active fermentation, I was very worried that I had a stuck fermentation. This is when fermentation stops before all the sugar is consumed, usually for vexing reasons. But when I opened the lid, and saw the golden color of the cyser, I knew things were on-track. When cider ferments, it turns from a dark brown to a golden color. This delicious color was a sure sign that fermentation was right on track. And the gravity proves my point (notice the hydrometer floating in the cyser). After only a few days of fermentation, after a painful start, the gravity dropped from 1.090 to 1.010. That's a lot of progress for such a short time. Fermentation should finish up in the next day or so and this cyser should be ready for racking this weekend.

Cyser Fermentation Problems

2010-02-24T16:06:00.000-08:00

Home brewers know that apple cider is an incredible fermenter- it just wants to ferment. If you’ve ever had cider in your fridge develop a sharp flavor, congratulations, you’ve successfully fermented cider using wild yeast. So imagine my surprise when my cyser, which is cider and honey, failed to begin fermenting even when I added an aggressive commercial champagne yeast. Champagne yeast will ferment almost anything and are robust enough to handle even the most difficult conditions, such as cold temperatures, low nutrient levels and high alcohol levels. Even still, no fermentation!

Thinking out the possible causes for this problem, I thought that I had possibly mistakenly bought cider with preservatives in it. Sometimes orchards add potassium sorbate to their cider, which is a preservative that prevents mold and bacterial growth. It does not kill yeast and is not a poison or fungicide. Rather, potassium sorbate prevents yeast from multiplying. And since yeast need to be multiplying constantly to survive, potassium sorbate is a death sentence. Cider that is unpasteurized (which I don’t think you can even buy unless you know someone who owns a cider press) will start going hard immediately, as the apple skins tend to have lots of wild yeast. Most commercial cider is pasteurized, which means it is flash heated to kill bacteria and wild yeast. Even still, without potassium sorbate, this cider will still spontaneously ferment. Wild yeast in the air just love cider, and interestingly enough, (and unlike wine and beer) they will make a delicious hard cider. I’m not too sure why wild yeast works so well for cider but produce off flavors in beer and wine (except for traditional lambics, which are wild fermented), but it works! Anyway, I raced out to my recycle bin and the label clearly says “no preservatives”.
As I wasn’t coming up with any other answers, I emailed the Hudson Valley farm I bought the cider from to ask them, even though their label said no preservatives, it might be possible that potassium sorbate made it’s way into the cider. Perhaps the honey was making fermentation more difficult in a way I couldn’t understand, but cider is usually just so easy to ferment that I thought I would investigate the most likely causes first, namely potassium sorbate.

I got an immediate email response from the owner of Breezy Hill Orchard in Staatsburg, NY, and low and behold, the owner makes hard cider commercially and has studied hard cider making in England, which is the world-wide epicenter of hard cider (or as they call it, simply, cider). She told me she was an avowed anti-potassium sorbate advocate and never puts sorbate into her cider.

With the most likely culprit exonerated, I turned my attention to the next likely suspects. Namely fermentation temperature- the cyster must was in the low 70s, which is a good temperature for fermentation. Low temperatures can cause sluggish fermentations and can even send the yeast into dormancy, which could potentially explain fermentation failing to start. Very high sugar levels can also overwhelm even aggressive yeasts. Champagne yeasts can handle high alcohol and high sugar levels, but if the levels are too high too soon, they can shock the yeast into dormancy and fermentation may never begin. But that usually only happens with VERY high sugar levels.

Another reason yeast might go dormant is adding yeast too soon after sulfiting. Potassium metabisulfite is a winemaking chemical added right after the fruit is pressed. This chemical is similar to potassium sorbate in that it prevents yeast from multiplying, but it’s much weaker than sorbate and after about 24 hours (after all the other yeast has gone dormant) you can add commercial yeast and they will get a good start at fermenting the cider or wine. I don’t use sulfites because cider is already pasteurized to kill bacteria and as I detailed above, wild cider yeast doesn’t seem to harm the flavor of the cider. Plus the commercial yeast will almost instantly overwhelm the wild yeast and out-compete them for food. The wild yeast will simply not have the time to build up their populations before the commercial yeast takes over. Adding honey doesn’t change the thinking, as honey is naturally resistant to spoliation and will not contribute wild yeast or molds in any meaningful quantity.

The last culprit was nutrients. Beer, wine and cider all have more than enough nitrogen and other nutrients for a healthy fermentation. Honey on the other hand, natural as it is, tends to be only low levels of these nutrients. If you don’t add these missing nutrients, you’ll have a slow and painful fermentation. This isn’t just time consuming because when yeasts are stressed, they produce off flavors. Yikes. I thought the cider would add more than enough nutrients to the cyser to get the fermentation going. After all, even if there was enough nutrient to ferment the whole batch, there would at least be enough to get the fermentation started. Logically speaking, if there’s enough nutrient to ferment the cider, even if you add honey, there’s still enough nutrient to ferment the cider. Yet here we are.

I added a healthy amount of yeast nutrient to the cyser must about 40 hours into the fermentation. About 12 hours later the cyser was bubbling away. I still don’t understand how the nutrient could have been such a problem to prevent fermentation from even starting, but problem solved.

I bounced this off my new friend at Breezy Hill and she said she always uses nutrient when making cider and that in the olden days cider makers used to throw a leg of lamb into the cider to add nitrogen. They didn’t know what nitrogen was back then, in fact they didn’t even know what yeast was, but they saw that it led to a better fermentation and better cider.

I’ll be keeping an eye on this fermentation. More nutrient may be necessary to get the fermentation over the finish line!

Bottling the 2009 Sauvignon Blanc

2010-02-21T14:45:00.000-08:00

I bottled most of the 2009 vintage a few weeks back, but unfortunately the Sauvignon Blanc was not sufficiently clear. I added some bentonite and the wine cleared up nicely. Bentonite is a clarifying agent- it binds to the haze in the wine and settles to the bottom of the fermenter. With white wine especially, you can only bottle when brilliantly clear. A small amount of lees in the bottom of a bottle of red is fine, but crud floating up in a bottle of white isn't appealing.
Fortunately this wine clarified nicely and looks brilliant in these clear bottles. Plus I had a half bottle left over after bottling- delicious!

The Cyser Project

2010-02-20T12:44:00.001-08:00

Folks who read this blog regularly know what mead is- a wine-like beverage made from honey. But there are many different kinds of mead, including one called Cyser. Essentially cyser is mead made with apple cider rather than with water. So rather than getting 100% of the fermentable sugars from honey, you're getting about half from honey and half from the cider. If mead is an esoteric drink, cyser is straight-up obscure.

I've tried making cyser before, and I didn't have much success. But cider is delicious, and mead is delicious, so I think it's worth another try. Many recipes tell you to dose the cider with campden tablets or to heat the honey-cider mixture to kill wild yeast. I'm not a fan of these approaches. Heating drives off flavors and aromas, as they volatilize at high temperatures. Plus cider has the interesting ability to ferment naturally and taste just as delicious as when fermented with commercial yeast. Honey is naturally resistant to spoliation. For all these reasons I'm in favor of a simple approach of just mixing the ingredients together and letting the yeast do it's thing.

Here I'm using honey from Tremblay Apiaries and cider from Breezy Hill Orchards, which I bought from the Greenmarket in Union Square, here in New York City. The honey is incredible artisanal honey from upstate New York and the cider is delicious preservative free cider from the Hudson Valley. It's important to get preservative free cider, as the preservative prevent spoliation, which will prevent the yeast from fermenting your brew.
The cider has a specific gravity of 1.050. To the five gallons of cider I added about six pounds of honey. This raised the gravity to 1.090. If the champagne yeast ferments to dryness, this should yield about 11.9% alcohol by volume.
To mix the honey and the cider, I used a drill and the mixing attachment I made a while back. This tool does a great job mixing the thick honey up unto the cider. I didn't add any yeast nutrient as I'm guessing that the cider will add enough nutrient to keep the yeast happy, nutrient that is missing from honey. But I will be keeping an eye on the fermentation process to see if progress slows or stalls. So stay tuned to see how this project develops!

Bottling the 2009 Vintage

2010-02-15T13:06:00.000-08:00

Bottling wine is one of those profoundly satisfying tasks. You've spent months slaving over a wine vintage and now it's time to bottle the fruits of those labors. When you're done, you'll have a few dozen attractive bottle of delicious wine that you made from scratch.

This year I made 6 gallons of California Barbera, Sangiovese and Sauvignon Blanc. The Barbera and Sangiovese are clear, stable and ready to be bottled. The Sauvignon Blanc was still a little cloudy and needed another racking. With white wine, it's very important to bottle only when completely clear. Red wine should also be brilliantly clear for proper presentation, but a very small amount of sediment in a red wine bottle won't detract from a red wine like it will with a white. So the Sauvignon Blanc will need to wait for another day.

Bottling is one of the easiest parts of the wine making process. Corkers can be purchased for $30 but a floor standing corker for $100 is well worth the money if you'll be bottling a lot of wine. Bottles can be reused (bring home all the empty bottles from weddings and parties!) but you must purchase new corks. Wash the bottles in a one-step sanitizer wash.

You'll also want to add a few crushed camden tablets to the wine before you bottle it. Camden tablets not only make any lingering yeast go dormant, they also prevent oxidation. This is a real threat when you are jostling wine in a siphon tube.

Then simply siphon the wine into the bottles up to about 1/4" below the bottom of the cork. If you're bottling a lot of wine you'll want to buy one of the cork filling gizmos on the market. This will really make your life easier! But a small siphoning tube is also easy to control and gets the job done.

Then cork the wine and start designing your wine labels!

Mounting Alpine Touring Ski Bindings

2010-02-02T17:19:00.000-08:00

Interestingly enough, one of the most popular posts I've done on this blog is how to mount bindings on skis. It's a relatively simple process, but most people are so scared of drilling into expensive skis that they eagerly pay a ski shop $50 to mount them. But if you're handy, it shouldn't intimidate you.

Ski shops have jigs for each binding model which line up all the holes in the right relationship to each other and orients the holes so the binding is centered on the ski. You won't have these jigs, but templates for many models are available on the internet. You can mount the bindings without a template, you simply must spend some time lining up the boot and the bindings on the ski.

I won't go through all the details from my last post, but generally, start with lining up the boot on the ski. All skis have a centering line which you line up with the centering line on the boot. Here's a pic of the centering line. Mark the front and rear of the boot.
The heal piece of the binding slides back and forth but the front is stationary. Therefore, mount the front first and then the rear. The piece of the toe piece that receives the tongue of the boot should line up with the line you drew. The toe piece should also be centered on the ski widthwise. Measure this several times from all angles to make sure it is centered on the ski and that the toe piece to the centering line is exactly the same length as half of the ski boot sole length.
Your bindings will likely have different length screws, but they all protrude from the binding into the ski the same length. Line them up in the orientation they will go in the bindings so you don't put long screws into the short screw holes.
When you have the holes marked, and you've checked and double checked your measurements, take a punch and mark each hole. This will prevent the drill bit from wobbling and will ensure the holes go exactly where you want them to.
Drill each hole. I've seen drill bit sizes 3.5-4.1 mm recommended, though I usually use 5/32nd which seems to be more common. Be sure to measure how far each screw protrudes from the binding, and put a piece of tape on the drill bit so you don't drill too far into the ski. Scrape off any plastic which is raised up from the binding around the pilot hole.
Add some 5 minute epoxy to each hole. I've also used gorilla glue. Install each screw and hand tighten. Make it snug, but don't over-tighten. You don't want to strip the pilot holes!
When the front is mounted, line up the back and mount just like the front. Norm Abrams says measure twice, cut once, but with skis, measure like 15 times.
Alpine touring boots have thick soles, and usually have adjustable toe pieces to accommodate different size boots. You will likely also need to adjust the heel piece so it fits your boots properly. Depending on your skiing ability, you may also need to reset the DIN, which is the spring tension which controls when the binding ejects in a fall. Don't set the DIN higher than your skiing ability can handle, or you could injure yourself in a fall.

A Particularly Interesting News Review

2010-02-02T08:22:00.000-08:00

Guess what's cool now? Apparently those who are hipper than me now find it cool to be an "Urban Woodsman". This means they're into appearing as if they're into chopping wood, shooting guns, wearing flannel/carhartts/beards and generally being proficient at surviving in the woods, hunting game, climbing mountains, etc, even though they live in, and rarely leave I would bet, New York City. Apparently someone's been been reading my DIY blog. Though it remains to be seen if this is actually a genuine interest they are cultivating, or just posturing. Being self-sufficient is a life style, not a trend. (See also, Urban Caveman)Similarly, as New York Magazine is reporting, jerky is now "artisinal". Why does everything cool need to be hip? Everything interesting needs to be a trend?

Overfishing is a major environmental problem with fish stocks hovering near collapse all over the world. Here's an interesting article about a ban on grouper fishing in South Carolina. I find it particularly interesting that the industry is so consolidated that fish caught in South Carolina is often shipped thousands of miles by processors only to end up on a plate a mile away from the dock.

Climate litigation is getting hot.

Also new on the trend front, growlers are hip! Even though beer lovers have been using them since the advent of the micro-brew revolution in the early 1990s, apparently now it's become "hip" in these parts.

On an uplifting, but somewhat uneasy note, the massive Fresh Kills Landfill is slowly being turned into a bird sanctuary. Though it's making the best of the situation, it's still a little awkward to enjoy nature at a former dump.

It's almost time to choose seeds for the garden this summer.

Save money by not heating your house. Somehow these folks don't strike me as as posers.

The thrifty and self-sufficient types knows waste not, want not and doesn't throw away things that might be useful for a project later. Even if you have no idea what that project might me. But clearly some people take this too far.

Nature in New York. A coyote is captured in Harlem.

Restoring an Antique Crank Coffee Grinder

2010-01-27T15:58:00.000-08:00

In the days before people spent $4 on a cup of coffee, they brewed their own coffee at home with pre-ground coffee from steel cans. In the days before pre-ground coffee from steel cans, people ground their own coffee in nifty electric coffee grinders. And in the days before people used electric coffee grinders, they ground their own with hand crank coffee grinders. These handsome wooden and metal contraptions were common in kitchens around the US and Europe. The only time you see them these days is creating ambiance in diners and restaurants. I've been looking for a grinder like this for a while. No electricity and no batteries required. And last weekend I was luck enough to find one for $20 at an antique store.

This unit is made by Zassenhaus in Germany, where they still make hand crank coffee grinders. They're pieces of art as much as they are functional, with prices to match. This unit is probably not actually that old, as it says "Germany" on the bottom, rather than East or West Germany. The company's been around since 1867, but I'd wager this was made after the fall of the Berlin Wall, as it doesn't look like a pre-war grinder. Although the wood is in great condition, the mechanicals were quite rusty. It looks like someone tried to wash the inside and did not dry out the grinding burs. Unlike nearly everything made these days, this grinder was made to be easy to disassemble, repair and reassemble. Removing the lid was as easy as four screws on top of the unit and two on the sides.
What greeted me on the inside was a rusty mess of steel. Though everything still worked, I wouldn't want to drink coffee after it was run through these rusty burs.
I took apart the entire mechanism, cleaned everything with metal polish and a toothbrush and then dried everything carefully with a paper towel. A little scrubbing does wonders. The unit was remarkably easy to disassemble. Just a few wood screws holding the whole thing together.
Practically everything manufactured today is made to last for a few years and be thrown away. Higher quality consumer goods are meant to last a lifetime, but are rarely meant to be serviced when something goes wrong. But this grinder was easy to take apart, easy to clean and easy to put back together. And it makes delicious coffee!

Stuck Fermentation, Yeast Biology and Attenuation

2010-01-26T17:15:00.000-08:00

The maple syrup fermentation is going a little funky. About 24 hours into the fermentation, activity has slowed dramatically, which is several days ahead of schedule.

“Stuck fermentation” is essentially when the yeast stops fermenting before it should, or at least before I think it should. Most wine with normal wine yeast can ferment to dryness, which means that the gravity gets down to 1.000 and there is very little residual sugar left in the wine. Beer is another story. Beer always has a certain amount of residual sugar which is left unfermented, usually because it's not actually sugar, but starches that were not fully converted into sugar during the brewing process. But sometimes sugar does remain in the beer and the yeast go inactive for some other reason.

When you’re buying yeast, you’ll see something called the yeast’s “attenuation” rating, which is essentially the percentage of sugar which is consumed by the yeast. When the yeast gets to the end of the fermentation process, they begin to flocculate, which means they settle to the bottom and go dormant. Different yeasts have different attenuation ratings, which mean they can be expected to begin flocculating and going dormant with different levels of residual sugars/starches left in the beer. Where you end up in the provided range is usually dependent on how difficult a beer you are trying to ferment. For example, higher gravity beers will be more difficult to ferment and will have a lower attenuation rates. These usually require the more aggressive yeasts, such as wine yeasts. In some cases, brewers start off with an agressive beer yeast and then finish with an agressive wine yeast. This gives you the best of both worlds; beer yeast which adds distinctive flavors to the beer and wine yeast which adds no flavor but can handle difficult conditions like high alchohol levels and difficult to ferment sugars.

Usually you don’t need to worry too much about attenuation, because your beer will ferment cleanly and normally. But sometimes the yeast stops when there is still a good amount of sugar left in the beer. This may go well with certain styles of beer, but may be undesirable in others. Unfortunatly your hydrometer measures suspended solids, which could be sugars or starches that were not converted in the brewing process. So essentially you could have stuck fermentation with yeast that shut down before eating the sugar or you could have unfermentable starches, and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Why does this happen? My understanding is that it's either a weak boil (so the enzymes couldn't work their conversion magic) or a lot of unique adjunct grains which add lots of stuff other than sugar. Interestingly enough, Beano (yes the stuff for gas) can convert the starches to sugar, but it can be a slow process and isn't really practical for brewing.

Most yeasts have an attenuation of between 65%-85%. This means that you can expect the yeast to ferment between 65%-85% of the available sugar. With a 1.050 beer, you’d get down to 1.010 to almost 1.000. However it should be noted that there are many extrinsic factors which control how far your fermentation progresses aside from the yeast choice, for example unfermentable starches. In my example, you’d never get down to 1.000 because the yeast would never be able to ferment to dryness. You’d only approach 85% attenuation if you started with a higher gravity beer, which may have its own fermentation problems. The relationship is somewhat like a parabola.

With the IPA and Maple IPA I brewed last weekend, I started with gravities of 1.046 and 1.055 respectively. Adjusted for the temperature (as gravity readings are set to 60 degrees, so you need to calculate for other temperatures), the actual gravities are 1.049 and 1.058 respectively. Twenty-four hours later the gravity of both brews is at 1.020 (or 1.021 adjusted for the temperature). That’s an attenuation of 45.5% (ABV of 3.69%) for the IPA and 50.7% (ABV of 4.89%) for the maple IPA. Check out this great calculator to do your own calculations. These numbers are very low and further, the gravity is still too high with a good amount of available sugar left. Though it’s interesting that they started at different gravities and both stuck at the exact same gravity only 24 hours later. So we may actually be looking at problem of unfermentable starches.

The generic yeast I used has “medium attention” and “low flocculation”. Higher quality liquid yeasts would probably give me more specific parameters, but essentially this means that the yeast is in the middle of the road when it comes to attenuation (approx 75%?). Low flocculation means that the yeast doesn’t drop to the bottom of the fermenter quickly. This means that my beer is probably still fermenting at a low level, as some yeast is still in suspension and still working. This can be tested by checking the gravity over a few days to see if it's still dropping, but the activity is likely so low that it won't make a difference. Yeasts with low flocculation are also harder to clarify, because the yeast isn’t as prone to settling out of the beer. In any event the fermentation is clearly winding down, as I can also tell by the fact that yeast cake on top of the beer has fallen (or flocculated) to the bottom of the fermenter. As with all ales, an active fermentation is evidenced by a thick, goey, bubbling layer of yeast on top of the beer- also called krausen. Lagers, as everyone knows, ferment from the bottom.

So what to do? Given the choice between a sweeter beer with lower alcohol and a dryer beer with more alcohol, I’ll choose the latter anytime. There are different theories about rousing the yeast to continue fermenting, but the best solution, and the least likely to oxidize the beer through unnecessary mixing, is the inoculation of a more aggressive yeast. In this case, I’m going to try using some champagne yeast to get the beer going again. Aside from the fact that I happen to have some champagne yeast lying around, it is also very aggressive and will ferment almost anything. Given the fact that there is partially fermented wort, it's almost mandatory to do a big yeast starter so the yeast is raring to go when it hits the beer. Dumping in dry yeast, typically not the best practice, is even less of a good idea, as the yeast will likely go dormant.

So is this a stuck fermentation or simply a lot of unfermetable starches? I didn't go crazy with the adjunct grains on this one and I had a solid boil, so I don't have a theory on why I would end up with a high final gravity due to unconverted starches. Stay tuned to see how successful I am with this rescue operation.

Brewing a Maple Syrup India Pale Ale

2010-01-25T15:57:00.000-08:00

I've been on somewhat of a brewing hiatus for a few months now. It was a busy summer and fall full of lots of brewing and delicious home made beer. Winter is upon us and I'm still enjoying the delicious chocolate porter I made way back in June of last year. Oh the simpler times, nary eight months ago. Anyway, the beer turned out fantastic. The straight-up chocolate porter was rich, smooth and delicious, with a smoky, nutty chocolate flavor, almost like a dark European chocolate bar. The batch I dry hopped with my New York City grown hops exhibits an unmistakable vanilla flavor.
Over the holiday I picked up a container of Vermont maple syrup. I couldn't think of a better use for it than to brew a maple syrup beer. Usually too expensive for even micro-brews, maple syrup is an amazing addition to small batches of beer. It adds a complex maple character that is unlike anything you've tasted in a beer before. So here's how I made a 10 gallon batch of brew last weekend, half of which will get a dose of maple syrup.

For grains, I'm using about two pounds of crystal and another pound and a half of carapilis. Not a classic pale malt but I'm no purist. Check out this steaming bag of grains! (and here's a tip- use knee high panty hose for grain bags. They're cheap and durable). I'm not one for measuring (or reading instructions) but I added a good amount of malt extract- about four big scoops full for the ten gallon batch. In my experience, each scoop raises the specific gravity .010 to .015, so four should get around 1.040 to 1.050. This will make a brew with 4.2% to 5.5% ABV.
For hops, I used six ounces of Northern Brewer boiling hops (added at the start of brewing) and six ounces of Willamette hops (added at the end of brewing). This is a healthy amount of hops, but we're brewing an IPA right?
After an hour of boiling, and after chilling with my immersion chiller, I separated the wort into two fermentation buckets.
Here's a picture of the "trub", which is the hop solids, proteins and other junk that settles to the bottom of the brew kettle during brewing. All the hop goodness has already infused into the beer, so dump this stuff into the compost bin.
Brewing 10 gallon batches is a great way to make lots of beer in less time, but it also means that you can end up with a lot of one kind of beer. Adding fruit, spices, flavors and sugars to the beers is a great way to make different beers after the brewing process is completed. Plus heat volatilizes many tastes and flavors- adding flavors after brewing, or even after fermentation, is a great way to add dynamic flavors. I like to add adjuncts after fermentation because the flavors tend to integrate better, but if you want the flavor to stand out (like with fruit), then add it after fermentation. Flavorful pontification aside, one bucket of this beer gets the maple syrup and the other will not.
The bucket that got the syrup ended up with a gravity of 1.055 and the one that didn't came in at 1.046, so a quart of syrup added a good amount of fermentable sugar to the beer.

Regarding yeast, it's been so long since I brewed last all my liquid yeast died. I even went so far as to make a yeast starter and the yeast never awoke from their slumber. Fortunately I have a back up plan: dried ale yeast. I hate to use generic yeast, but it works in a pinch.

Stay tuned to see how this beer develops!

News Review

2010-01-13T05:34:00.000-08:00

New York City gets a homebrew store! Perhaps less Internet ordering is in my future.

Homeless camping. Sad that this is going on in America, and New Jersey no less.

Take a deep breath New York City, that exhaust is killing you.

Who said New Yorkers, even our cabbies, aren't honest and decent people.

And what will certainly win an award for the most ridiculous hipster hobby ever, some people in New York are attempting to replicate the caveman lifestyle. You just can't make this stuff up. As NY Magazine adeptly pointed out, I wonder if they plan on dying at age 35?

A true Brooklyn Ironman, with an amazing life story, is stuck down before his time.

Like an engineer constantly trying to come up with a new and improved version, Michael Pollan's perpetual pontification perdures in his latest masterwork "Food Rules". Great how his books continue to get shorter and more digestible.

And in probably the most touching piece of journalism the AP has ever done, a 101 year old Maine man has been trying to save an ancient elm tree from Dutch Elm Disease since the 1950s. But the tree's time has come unfortunately.

Street Find: Guitar Case

2010-01-12T13:09:00.000-08:00

Street find! What do I find when walking down the street this morning but a beautiful vintage guitar case. Although I typically have a rule of no trash picking of any item that contains fabric, due to the possibility of bed bugs, I made an exception in this case because there is minimal padding and the cold kills bed bugs, at least according to several websites I read after the fact. Needs new latches and a new handle but otherwise quite a cool case. Complete with a Tarantinoan orange glow!

Mufflers: Bubble Gum, Duct Tape and Aluminum Siding

2010-01-08T13:38:00.000-08:00

How does one fix a muffler? Or more properly phrased, how does one put off fixing a muffler? Well, the first question, is what is a muffler? A muffler essentially muffles the engine. The internal combustion engine works through controlled explosions of air and gasoline which drives a piston up and down in a cylinder. The exhaust gases exit the cylinder, enter the exhaust manifold and go into the catalytic converter. Black magic ensues, as rare earth metals convert noxious chemicals into somewhat less noxious chemicals. But the gases are still very hot and the sound of the explosions still very loud. The muffler quiets this roar through a series of baffles, just like how home insulation reduces noise or how it’s easier to yell through a sheet than, err.. a pillow. The muffler not only keeps your car quiet, it also provides a certain amount of back pressure on the engine. If the exhaust escapes too readily, it can actually make the engine less efficient, throw off the sensors in your exhaust system and annoy your neighbors.

But as your auto gets on in years, the exhaust system is one of the first things to rust out. Your car gets slowly louder, until your muffler falls off on the cross Bronx expressway after you drive off a 12 inch wide expansion joint. Fortunately things on my Jeep are not so dire, but the muffler is certainly on its way out. I called a national chain muffler shop and they said it would be $350 to fix! With new mufflers available for $50 online, that estimate certainly seems exorbitant. But with the temperatures in the Northeast currently hovering around insanely cold, it’s not the best time of year for the do-it-yourselfer to be tackling this sort of project. So to forestall the inevitable decline of my muffler, I took to some old fashion MacGyver-esque jury rigging.
I’m sure the inside of my muffler is in tough shape, but my primary focus is the separating outer skin. I decided that an extra piece of aluminum siding, pounded flat on an anvil, would seal the hole relatively well, at least as a short term solution.

Don’t ask why my friend had this tool, but I was able to borrow a pallet strapping machine. This machine tightens and installs those black metal bands that secure cargo on pallets, go around furniture, and secure other large items for transport. It’s not as strong as a big hose clamp, but it will provide good holding power. Three bands and the aluminum siding wasn’t going anywhere.
The car was a little quieter, but at minimum the aluminum siding should keep the problem from getting worse until spring when I can do a proper repair. You don’t want exhaust escaping anywhere but at the back of the car, or it could enter the passenger compartment, which would not be a good situation for anyone inside, or anyone else on the road anywhere near you.

News Review

2010-01-04T05:47:00.000-08:00

Collect experiences, not possessions. Bravo Times!

The ethics of eating veggies. I see a new thesis Mr. Pollan.

Rabbid 'coons in the park!

You can't stop nature, you can only hope to contain it. Even in New York City.

The Self Sufficent Urbanite hunter! I share the same proclivities, and spent several weekends afield in the Hudson Valley this fall. Unfortunatly, the normally ubiquitious deer escaped, as did several potentially interesting blog posts. But life is about the journey not the destination. There's always next year.

Windshield Wipers and Headlights

2009-12-29T15:48:00.000-08:00

Headlights and wipers. They always seem to go together. Which makes sense, since most accidents happen in low visibility situations. In fact, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that 50% of traffic-related fatalities occur in the dark, despite only 25% of traffic traveling during darkness. Good visibility is what avoids accidents. This is why many car makers have daytime running lights as a standard safety feature.

So with winter fast approaching, and my wipers and headlights fast deteriorating, I decided it was time for some routine maintenance. I’m not sure what a repair shop would charge for this job, but I am sure that it would probably be shockingly expensive. And this is a very easy and inexpensive job to do yourself. The high performance winter wipers cost $8 each and took 30 seconds to install and the super bright headlights cost $14 (regular versions were $8) and took 1 minute to install. Here’s how you do it:

Headlights come in two basic styles. The old style, which consists of a sealed beam unit where you replace the entire lens assembly (mostly on older cars) and the new style, where the lens assembly is fixed in the car and you replace the bulb only (found on newer cars). Headlight technology has changed a lot in recent years (and if you want a detailed description of the styles and history of headlights, click here). The new styles reduce glare, increase visibility and look pretty cool too. With new and old headlights, it’s always a good idea to replace them in pairs as beam quality inevitably degrades over time.

The bulbs-only style can usually be replaced easily and quickly without needing to adjust the beam angle. Check your manual for the exact procedure, but on most cars there is a plug on the back end of the headlight assembly which can be accessed through the engine compartment. Simply unplug the old bulb, undo a clip holding the bulb in place, remove the old bulb and slide in the new one. They usually have a notch on them so they fit in the housing assembly correctly. This is necessary as bulbs have several different filaments, each which must point to a specific reflector in the headlight assembly for the headlamp to function correctly. Be careful not to touch the glass part of the new bulb during installation (the oils on your fingers can cause the bulb to heat up and burn out prematurely) and be sure to replace the rubber plug over the bulb unit in the engine compartment (because if moisture gets into the headlight, you’ll get a foggy headlamp and you’re in for a pricey replacement).
Replacing the old headlamp assembly, like mine, is even easier. On my car the headlights are held in place with a flexible bracket which has four screws holding it onto the car. Simply unscrew two of the four screws, bend up the bracket, remove the old headlight and unplug the electrical plug. Then put in the new headlight assembly, reinstall the plug and reinstall the screws. Unlike the bulb only replacement, you will need to realign the headlights because the lamp will not sit in the housing in the exact same way as the old one did. If you look on the sides of the lamp there will be a screw behind the mounting bracket on the top and side of the lamp. Tightening or loosening these screws will tilt the headlamp up and down and side to side. Check your manual for the proper headlamp alignment for your vehicle, but aiming them at a wall at night is a usually a good way to tell if one of your lamps is askew.Windshield wipers are hot right now. Hollywood even just made a movie about them, called Flash of Genius. If you doubt the transcendent genius of the windshield wiper, watch the movie and try driving in the rain without them, just not near me. But when the rubber blades start to wear out and you get chattering, squeaky and streaky wipers, it’s time for a replacement. I’ll be replacing my wipers with winter blades which is heavy duty and especially good at removing snow and ice. They cost marginally more and are worth every penny if you live in a snowy area.

First, find out what size wipers you need for your car. It’ll usually be around 14-18 inches. For the vast majority of cars there are three attachment systems but most replacement wipers have clasps that fit all four styles. The first style is the male pin arm (shown in the picture), where there is a 3/16th inch pin on the arm which is inserted into the blade assembly and snaps into place. The hook arm style has a hook which slides around the clip and snaps into place. The bayonet arm is a flat arm with a small pin which snaps onto the wiper blade. Lastly there is the female pin arm which has a small hole at the end of the wiper arm through which a pin attaches to the wiper blade. If you’re unsure which blades fit your car (some might not be universal) then ask your auto parts store clerk to help you find the right one. They can also explain how the snap works on the replacement blades. This is a very easy job which anyone can do themselves.

Making Wine Labels!

2009-12-26T14:38:00.000-08:00

Aside from actually producing it, the best part about making wine is creating the labels. The work is done and now it's time to create your own special stamp. I usually look for inspiration in recent trips I've done, so I decided to label my 2009 vintage with an Icelandic theme, as I went to Iceland this past summer. Check out these labels from the 2009 vintage!

"Miðnætursól" means "midnight sun" in Icelandic. And yes this picture was taken at midnight, only a few miles from the arctic circle!

"Svartur Lundey" means "black puffin". Puffins are cute seabirds common in Iceland. They're also delicious!

"Jökull" means "glacier" in Icelandic. There are no shortage of glaciers in this beautiful country!
Stay tuned for a report from bottling day, and of course taste testing!

December's New Amsterdam Market

2009-12-23T10:17:00.000-08:00

Another New Amsterdam Market is in the books, and Manhattan Meadery was there. Sure it snowed a foot the day before, but the crowds were undetered. The markets will be back next fall, or perhaps this spring!

And be sure to check out our latest retailer- Dandelion Wine in Greenpoint!

Street Find: Track Bike Wheel!

2009-12-22T17:41:00.001-08:00

Only in New York City would you find something like this in the trash. Something as hip as a track bike wheel and something so pricey just thrown in the trash. For those not in the know, a track bike, aka single speed bike, aka fixie, is a one speed road bike originally ridden on bike tracks, then by bike messengers, and now by by hipsters. Some bikes are specially built for this purpose and others are converted from road bikes. And you see them everywhere in New York.

This is what is known as a "flip flop" wheel because it has gears on both sides. You can turn it around and it can be a fixed gear (where the cranks are always directly connected to the wheel via the chain) or a coaster brake (where you can stop pedaling and coast, and then peddle backwards to stop). The bearings need a rebuild, the tire needs to be replaced and it is seriously out of true, but this wheel is quite repairable. And not cheap to replace. Now that I have the most expensive part of a fixed gear bike, maybe I should build one for myself!

Street Find: Cast Iron Pan

2009-12-19T06:09:00.000-08:00

Uninitiated trash pickers might recoil at the thought of finding a pan on the street, but this is no ordinary pan, this is a Lodge cast iron skillet, similar to another Lodge skillet I found a few years ago. So you can imagine how excited I got when I saw this pan sitting in the garbage last week near my New York City apartment!

Cast iron pans literally last forever. I have another cast iron skillet from the late 1800's that has been in my family for generations. So wouldn't it be a shame to throw out something so useful and durable? Even if it needs a little TLC? So here's how to bring a crusty and rusty cast iron pan back to life.
There are several ways to clean old cast iron pans which are covered in grime and crust. Ideally I like to use elbow grease to clean things rather than chemicals. But you need to bring out the big guns with pans that are in bad shape like this one, namely oven cleaner. A chemical free option might be to bake the pan in your oven on the cleaning setting or putting in a hot wood fire to bake off the crud.

I'm going to use oven cleaner to clean this pan. Oven cleaner contains lye, which is sodium hydroxide, also known as caustic soda. It's a corrosive alkaline which means that it is a base (a pH of approx. 13), or the opposite of an acid (low pH). The lye will dissolve the organic matter on the pan, including rock-hard crusty stains. Wear gloves and eye protection as lye will also dissolve your skin! Follow the directions on the can. You may need to reapply a few times for problem areas.

If your problem is a rusty pan, rather than a crud covered pan, try soaking in a solution of white vinegar and water (50/50) for a few hours and then scrubbing. The acid in the vinegar will dissolve the rust.
Clean the pan thoroughly to remove all the oven cleaner. The lye will also remove all of the seasoning in the pan, taking the pan down to bare metal. You will now have what is basically a brand new pan. The seasoning is essentially bits of food and fat which are lodged in the cracks and crevices of the pan, creating an all-natural non-stick surface. Much better than toxic Teflon! But with this seasoning removed, you will need to re-season.
Take the pan and rub it with bacon fat or cooking oil. Put the pan in the oven at 350 degrees for about an hour. The pan is now ready to use! Every time you cook in the pan, it will continue the seasoning process. This is also why you shouln't soak cast iron or scrub with soap as this can dissolve the seasoning. After cooking a few rounds of fatty food like bacon, the pan will achieve optimum seasoning and will be the perfect pan for foods like eggs, which are notorious for sticking to other types of pans. And you'll be able to enjoy your cast iron pan forever!

How to Tune Up a Car

2009-12-10T15:53:00.000-08:00

First things first- What exactly is a tune-up? As a non-mechanic do-it-yourselfer, I define a tune-up as routine maintenance that is done infrequently. There's nothing actually wrong with the car, you just need to do all those things listed in the manual that are done rather infrequently. Things like changing the spark plugs, changing the transmission and differential oil, changing the air filter, flushing the radiator, etc. Check your manual for how often these things have to be done. On many cars, it's a very infrequent occurrence. However, failing to do these things will lead to premature failure and expensive repairs. Properly maintaining a car will maintain power, efficiency and performance and will prevent premature wear. If you want your car to last a long time, be sure to perform routine maintenance. It's easy and will save you a lot of money in the long run.

In this post, I'll talk about a tune-up I recently did on my Jeep Cherokee. Doing these things yourself will save a lot of money over a mechanic but paying a mechanic to do these things will still save a lot of money over ignoring these tasks and paying a mechanic a lot more later for expensive repairs.First- the transmission! If you want the specifics on Jeeps- check this out.

This is a manual transmission and changing the oil is a straightforward job, though in reality it can be a painstaking and slow process. There are two plugs on the transmission, a drain plug and a fill plug. The drain plug is at the bottom of the transmission. Unscrew and drain into a drain plan.
The plug has a magnet which collects the metal particles from the transmission. If it's fine metal, you're all good. If you have chunks on the magnet, there is a serious problem. My Jeep has 160,000 miles on the original clutch and transmission- and I'm not really sure when the transmission oil was changed last- but the metal particles on the magnet were still like a very fine clay. The recommended replacement period for transmission fluid is 30,000 miles on my Jeep, which I'm pretty sure I missed!
The other plug is the fill plug. With the drain plug cleaned and reinstalled, fill the transmission with new transmission oil. But herein lies a problem. Because you're under the car, there isn't an easy way to pour in the new oil. (Note that automatic transmissions are different and most need to be filled from the engine compartment- check your manual).
You can pump the oil in or try siphoning it. I did this project on a cold day and the oil was like molasses. I aimed a hair dryer at it which warmed it up and decreased the viscosity of the oil. It still took two hours to fill the transmission, but it worked! When the transmission is full, no additional oil can be added the transmission without it draining out of the fill hole. Then simply reinstall the fill plug.
Filling the transfer case is even easier. The transfer case is where the power of the transmission is transfered to the front and rear wheels. If you have a regular two wheel drive car, you will not have a transfer case, because the power from the transmission goes directly to the front or rear wheels, not both. The transfer case has two plugs- a fill plug and a drain plug. Check your manual, but my Jeep calls for automatic transmission fluid for the transfer case. Remove the drain plug and drain the old oil and fill with new oil, in the same manner as with the transmission. This will be easier because the automatic transmission fluid is less viscous than gear oil and there is less to add to the transfer case.
Next lets change the differential axle oil. The differential is the part of the car that takes the power from the drive shaft and turns the axle, and hence the wheels. Not all cars have these. Front wheel drive cars for example are typically driven by drive shafts directly from the transmission. To drain my Jeep's differential, you need to remove the differential plate and let the oil drain out, clean the surfaces, apply a gasket sealing material, reinstall the plate and fill the differential up to the fill hole. If you're lazy you could always siphon or pump out the old fluid. On my Jeep, this takes the same gear oil as the transmission. The fill hole in the front was a 1/2" socket hole and the rear was only a small plastic stopper which plugged the hole.
Now let's change the air filter! You can't really tell by looking at an air filter whether it needs to be changed (but if it looks terrible, it probably is), so check your manual to determine the recommended replacement periods. A clogged air filter will rob your engine of power and efficiency and if it gets bad enough, cause your engine to run rich (too much gas in the gas/air mixture) and harm the engine.

To replace the filter (at least on my Jeep), unsnap the clasps on the side of the filter box and the top will slide off the bottom. Remove the old filter and vacuum out any crud in the bottom of the filter box. Replace with a new filter and reinstall the filter box lid. Easy! Next- spark plugs! Spark plugs do exactly what the name implies- they create a spark which ignites the fuel/air mixture at the exact right time to push the piston down, turn the crankshaft and send power to the transmission. But over time, the spark plugs wear out and become "fouled". They don't do their job as well and the efficiency and power of the engine is compromised. You might have a rough idle or even some of the cylinders not working properly. Remove the spark plug wires and then remove the plugs with a special spark plug wrench on your socket wrench. Do this on a cold engine only!
Reinstall the new spark plugs, be suring to torque them (measured with a torque wrench) to the proper level. Also be sure to check the gap- which is the distance between the center diode and the arm that reaches over the spark plug. This is where the spark jumps when the engine is running and the distance needs to be checked with a feeler guage (which checks width) to match manufacturer's specifications. Otherwise the spark will jump too soon or too late and the engine will not run properly. This may also be a good time to change your spark plug wires. These can also wear out, become less efficient and harm the performance of your engine. Check your manual for recommended replacement intervals.

Take a look at the difference between new and old! My engine ran much smoother after this job. These spark plugs were overdue for a change.
Be sure to check your car's manual, which will give you information on how often to do routine maintenance and what types of fluids, filters and spark plugs you should use. It is important to do maintenance as frequently as it is recommended by the manufacturer. This will ensure that your car will run smoothly for a very long time. We don't keep our cars around for a long time these days, because they wear out and we buy new ones. But a properly maintained car will last for a very long time and will save you a lot of money. Having a properly maintained car will run better, burn less gas and will not need to be replaced as often, which is thrifty and good for the environment.

Even if you do not do the maintenance on your car yourself, understanding exactly what your mechanic is doing will make you a more educated consumer. Most mechanics are honest and hard working craftsmen but there are always horror stories about unscrupulous mechanics defrauding customers. If you have a general idea how cars work and what mechanics are talking about, you won't be taken advantage of. Plus you will get a much better deal because you can compare the usually expensive car dealer with a more reasonably priced neighborhood shop.

I don't fix everything on my car, somethings are beyond my ability, but I always know what is wrong with my car before I pay someone to fix it and I always shop around for the best price and the highest quality service so the problem will be fixed correctly the first time. But many things can be fixed yourself- you'll save money, have fun, and have the satisfaction of knowing you are taking care of your car yourself.

Rust, The Relentless Enemy

2009-12-01T17:44:00.000-08:00

Nary a year ago I spent an afternoon repairing rust spots on my Jeep. But rust is a relentless enemy. You cannot defeat rust, you can only hope to contain it. The work I did last year was not for nothing, as it kept the rust from spreading and despoiling my beautiful semi-antique Jeep. So this past weekend, I fixed the resurgent rust and turned back my Jeep's body clock, again.
There were two main rust sections, which each needed to be ground out and filled with fiberglass body filler.
I pried out all the old body filler and took an angle grinder to the rust. I removed the rust and the paint around the rust. You don't want to leave any rust as it can cause premature failure of the repair. A rust inhibiting treatment can be applied to the repair to prevent rust recurrence.
Fiberglass body filler is also known by the commercial name Bondo. It's a two part putty which hardens in a matter of minutes into a sandable repair.
It may take a couple of rounds of Bondo and sanding to get a smooth surface which matches the profile of the car.
When the repair is smooth, you apply auto body primer. This provides a good bond for the paint and ensures a good color match with the rest of the paint.
Auto body mechanics are true artists which can do amazing things with metal and Bondo. I on the other hand can do repairs which look good from five feet or more!
But this repair isn't meant to be perfect. It's meant to be a a quick and inexpensive fix which gets rid of ugly rust which can spread and make your car generally look terrible.

Hudson Valley Ghost Towns: Potterville, New York

2009-11-30T17:21:00.000-08:00

Ghost towns may be a digression from my usual DIY fare, but after I visited Potterville recently, I had to share the story of the interesting and creepy place.
Up the nearly impassible 4x4 only Lundy Road, north of route 209 in Napanoch and Warwarsing, New York, is the ghost town of Potterville, New York. The town was apparently founded in the 19th century around a saw mill owned by Francis Potter, which processed hardwood lumber from the surrounding hills. In addtion to a mill, Potterville had a school, homes, barns, etc. The mill burned down and soon after a resident murdered another member of the town. He was caught and hung, but afterwards members of the town starting dying for no apparent reason. Then in 1927 there was a large flood and shortly thereafter a man killed his entire family and them himself. Legend has it that Potterville is still haunted by it's horrible history.
The former town apparently later became part of the Lundy Estate, a huge 5,200 acre estate owned by Frederick W.I. Lundy, owner of the former 2,800 seat seafood restaurant called Lundy's in Brooklyn, New York. The land was acquired by the state in 2000 and is now part of Catskill Park. Lundy's mansion is now now a private retreat for another owner. It is located about half way up Lundy Road where the quality of the road goes from good to terrible. Not much is left of the houses and town buildings, except for collapsed foundations. Apparently many of the buildings were removed when the state acquired the land in the early 2000s. I did find one clue to the history of the town; a foundation is marked with the date 1918. Some accounts of Potterville I've read on the internet say that there are still houses left standing in the woods, with furniture in every room and china on the kitchen tables. All I found was this creepy abandoned stone house along Lundy Road.
The town's old well. And some old steel culverts. With the thick metal and rivets, these may be old boilers.
I'm not exactly sure when Potterville was abandoned, but I did find a random telephone pole mounted transformer in the woods. This can't be that old.
And probably one of the strangest things of all, is this airplane wing. No fuselage or other debris, just an airplane wing. In the middle of the woods. Destroyed like it was in a crash. I'm not one to believe in ghosts, but Potterville would give anyone the creeps. And the more you learn about the history of this town, the creepier it gets!

Cruise on Newtown Creek with Riverkeeper

2009-11-22T16:56:00.000-08:00

Recently I was fortunate enough to join Riverkeeper on their patrol of Newtown Creek, a former estuary and current industrial waterway which separates Brooklyn from Queens. After decades of industrial abuse, the Creek is considered one of the most polluted waterways in America. But with Riverkeeper's help, the environmental quality of the Creek has improved dramatically in recent years. So across the East River we go...Much is often said of the New York City skyline, but rarely the view from Newtown Creek. The Creek is lined with industrial companies like scrap metal recyclers.
As well as long abandoned industrial artifacts. But old is giving way to new, with the brand new waste water treatment plant. Hopefully the new plant will prevent capacity overflows during wet weather. And the brand new sewage methane digesters, in the background. Methane is a very potent greenhouse gas, but can also be burned to make electricity. It wasn't raining, but an outfall was still pouring something into the river.
Probably the most disturbing part of the trip was when a giant barge churned up contaminated sediment from the bottom of the Creek. The smell was horrific and I don't want to know what floated to the surface.
Clean up of the contamination is ongoing, and boats are supposed to go slowly to prevent churning up the contaminated sediment. But wildlife did seem to be living in the Creek. Notice the cormorants sunning their wings.
Most people in New York probably have no idea where Newtown Creek is located. In the early 1700's this was a beautiful estuary surrounded by woodlands and small farms. Today it is one of the most polluted waterways in America. But with Riverkeeper's help, we can hopefully cleanup the Creek and reconnect New York City to its beautiful waterways.

Manhattan Meadery at New Amsterdam Market!

2009-11-22T16:10:00.000-08:00

Today was the third of four New Amsterdam Markets, and Manhattan Meadery was there! It was a beautiful day of pouring samples, talking to customers and selling bottles.

We're also now at Uva in Williamsburg and a few other new wine stores and restaurants. Check out the website and stay tuned for a report on bottling our second vintage.

Make Your Own Hot Sause!

2009-11-15T07:10:00.000-08:00

It may be November, and the leaves may be off the trees, but there are a few vegetables in the garden that are still ripening. Hot peppers continue growing until a heavy frost, long after my other vegetables have wilted and died.
I even have some peppers that have not yet turned red.
With a handful of late season hot peppers, I decided to try my hand at making some hot sauce. I did a bunch of research and most recipes have you either chop, sauté, blend and bottle or chop, blend, sauté and bottle. I decided to blend after sautéing, because I figured sautéing the puree might volitolize some of the spicy flavor. I could be wrong on the science here, but I decided to go with my hunch.
After chopping and sautéing the peppers, along with some garlic and onions, I blended the mixture along with some white vinegar and a healthy amount of salt. And viola, homemade hot sauce!
Most recipes suggest a few months of aging. Tabasco sauce is fermented for three years in oak barrels. You can't replicate that, but after a few weeks this sauce should start to ferment, just like Tabasco sauce. It'll be interesting to see how this fermentation takes place, compared to the fermentation process of beer and wine. I did a little research, and this process is similar to other fermented foods, like sauerkraut. It'll be interesting to see how the color of the sauce changes as the fermentation takes hold.

Racking the 2009 Vintage

2009-10-11T15:23:00.000-07:00

It's been two weeks since I started fermentation on the 2009 vintage. Sixteen gallons of barbera, sangiovese and sauvignon blanc have been bubbling away and are now ready to be racked into carboys for bulk aging. I took gravity readings and the barbera was 0.998, sangiovese was 1.000 and sauvignon blanc was 0.998. If you read my explanation of specific gravity in my last post, you may ask how gravity could end up below 1.000 if by definition once all the sugar is consumed and there are no more dissolved solids, the hydrometer should only be measuring the water in the wine. It's essentially because alcohol doesn't have exactly the same gravity as water. In fact, some higher alcohols have gravities lower than 1, which drops the gravity reading of the wine. I'm not a chemist, but this is my understanding based on what I have read on the subject. In any event, this wine has fermented to dryness and fermentation is completed!
The wine will sit in the carboys for several months to clarify and stabilize. I added some bentonite to the wine, which is refined clay. The proteins in the wine will bind with the bentonite and the haze will fall out of the wine.
With the carboys nearly filled, I sacrificed a few bottles of alicante wine from last year to top up the carboys. You don't want an air gap in the carboys, which can oxidize the wine, and you'll get the bottle back in a few months when you bottle.
A few more rackings and a few months of aging and we'll be ready for bottling!

2009 Wine Harvest

2009-10-04T11:47:00.000-07:00

The 2009 harvest has arrived! I picked up three 5.4 gallon buckets of California grape juice this past weekend, which will make about 80 bottles of wine. I had my heart set on a petite syrah and a tempranillo, but you need to adapt to the vagaries of the harvest and delivery schedule. So I ended up with a barbera, a sangiovese and a sauvignon blanc. I've done a lot of wine making in my life, but this will actually be my first white, not counting mead!
The barbera had an original gravity of 1.092, the sangiovese 1.100 and the sauvignon blanc 1.102. Assuming these all ferment to dryness, this should yield alcohol by volume of 12.2%, 13.2% and 13.5% respectively.
How does all this abstruse alchemy work? It's not that complicated. Wine makers and beer brewers all use a tool called a hydrometer. This a weighted glass measuring tool that floats in the wine must or beer wort (or in a cylinder for ease of measuring). Depending on the specific gravity of the liquid, the hydrometer will float or sink to a measuring line on the instrument. You can thank Archimedes for this neat trick!

So what is specific gravity exactly? Well it is the ratio of the density of the liquid to the density of the water. The gravity of water on the scale is set to 1.000. The suspended substance that increases the density from 1.000 to 1.100 or 1.102 is comprised almost exclusively of sugar. The yeast will consume the sugar and as a by-product will produce alcohol and carbon dioxide. The resulting alcohol will have a gravity similar to that of the water and therefore you can take another gravity reading (the final gravity) and can calculate the amount of sugar consumed and hence the amount of alcohol produced. You can calculate this yourself, but there are lots of web calculators that do all the fancy math for you. Remember to keep track of the temperatures as well, as the gravity of the beer or wine will change as the temperature increases or decreases away from the default value of the hydrometer, usually like 60 degrees Fahrenheit.

There are several other methods of calculating sugar levels in wine. You often hear the word "Brix" used in wine making, which is similar to gravity, but more precise because it measures sugar levels by the refraction of light as it passes through the liquid, as compared to pure water. Vineyard owners like this tool because they can squish a single grape in the field to test sugar levels and determine the perfect time to harvest their grapes.

Stay tuned for more info on fermenting and aging of the 2009 vintage!

The Central Park Beam Bench: Part 2- Construction

2009-10-03T11:19:00.001-07:00

With the sanding complete, it's time for construction of the reclaimed wood beam bench. As I discussed last time, the bench will have two legs splayed out at an angle from the top. The legs will be connected to the top with mortise and tenon joinery, which is a very strong joint. This is important, even with thick wood like this, because the legs will not be perpendicular to the top and hence will act as a lever. The joint will need to be extra strong to resist the temptation to pull out of the top. A solution to this problem would be to run a stringer (wood or metal) between the legs to hold them together. But that would distract from the look of the bench and with the thickness of this wood, I think I can get away with a mortise and tenon joint.

They aren't making any more of this reclaimed wood, so Norm Abrams' advice to measure twice and cut once is especially sagacious. I took my time calculating the angles and measuring the cuts (and double checking my calculations) to make sure everything would be perfect. All four angles of the leg cuts need to be identical, so the legs will sit at the same angle relative to the top and relative to the floor. Otherwise, the bench will not be level, it will not enter the top squarely nor will it be stable upon the floor. The cross cut jig shown below slides on the surface of the table saw and ensures a stable and precise cut.

Because of the thickness of the wood, and the fact that when cutting at an angle the width of the wood is thicker (because you're not cutting straight through) I had to make the cuts on both sides of the legs and then sand the surface. You'd need a huge saw blade to make this cut in one pass!
Although the legs would be splayed out at an angle from the top, the mortise would fit into the top at a perpendicular angle. This is for strength, but also because measuring and drilling out a mortise at an angle would be very difficult. The pieces below show the angle the legs will sit on the top and the dimension of the large tenons. They're going to be a full two inches into the top.The tenons will need to be cut mostly by hand.
Removing the top section above the tenon. Note that unlike the bottom of the legs (which I cut all the way through, above) the top of the legs need to be cut at the same angle, but the angle cut needs to stop at the tenon...
... so that the tenon emerges from the leg at a right angle to the top and that the rest of the leg, into which the tenon is a part, is parallel to the bottom cut of the leg. In other words, the leg becomes a parallelogram (or actually a rhomboid to be precise), with a tenon sticking out of the top at a right angle to the top plane. Who said geometry wouldn't ever come in handy?
To cut the mortise, I'll drill out the section to be removed with a drill press and then square it up with a chisel. I'm using a forstner bit, which is designed to make precise wood cuts, and is far preferable to the common spade bit for this type of application. I set the depth gauge of my drill press so that every hole I drill will be two inches deep, same as the length of my tenon.
The mortise completed. Notice I had to sand down the bench as the board was slightly warped, and I wanted to make sure the legs would lay flat on the bottom of the bench.
Glue applied to the tenon, ready to be inserted into the mortise. Be sure to dry fit the joint to make sure it fits snugly! I'm using Gorilla Glue which will provide a super strong bond.
And the leg, clamped in place.
Stay tuned for final sanding and finishing!

The Central Park Beam Bench: Part 1- Sanding

2009-09-28T14:21:00.000-07:00

Last year I built a long wooden bench from a beam salvaged from the Central Park Police Precinct. I couldn't bare to cut the 12 foot long piece of wood, so I mounted it along a wall with cast iron legs. But then I saw a bench in a fancy furniture store in Soho made from a reclaimed beam (and selling for $5,000) which caught my attention. It was a massive beam of old growth pine with legs cantilevered out at a 20 degree angle, sort of like the figure for pi, with a long top. I thought to myself, "I can make that", which is how most of my projects start.

So I headed over to Build It Green, New York City's home for salvaged and one-of-a-kind building materials, for a little rummaging. If you're a do-it-yourselfer, you owe it to yourself to check out this place. They have a ton of cool stuff! I was lucky enough to find another reclaimed beam. Like the other one, this one was old growth yellow pine but this was a full 4.5 inches thick, 18 inches wide and 10 feet long. Old growth wood like this is simply not available commercially any more. This tree was probably a few hundred years old when it was cut down in the 1870s or 1880s, somewhere up the Hudson, where it was rough sawn and delivered by boat to New York City. Build It Green said the beam came from the Central Park Stables. I'm not sure if they meant the new Policy Precinct on the 96th street transverse or the Claremont Riding Academy, both of which recently underwent major rehabs. Check out some pics of the beam: I love the holes and the notches. They really give the beam character.

You can tell it's old wood because of the saw marks- and the grime! Modern saw mills do not leave blade marks like this!

Old fashion square nails. Very cool! But will have to come out so I don't damage my tools.

That's a thick piece of wood! Old growth lumber like this just isn't available commercially anymore.

The blade marks are beautiful- and very unique. I'll have to save this detail for the bottom of the bench.

To remove the rough surface wood and over a hundred years of grime, I'll be using a belt sander with a super heavy duty 40 grit belt. This will make short work of the surface wood. It may be beautiful, but even nicer wood lies underneath. And you wouldn't want to put your feet up on this dirty old piece of wood.

The wood was so impregnated with years of grime, that the sawdust actually smelled like a museum. That musty smell you get when you walk into the antiquities room at the Met. I guess that would be "patina".

Look at that beautiful wood revealing itself.

And check out that sawdust. It was everywhere, all over me and in huge piles on the ground. You better believe I used a respirator and eye protection for this job. You don't want this stuff in your lungs or your eyes.

Stay tuned as I continue this project and turn this beautiful piece of old growth yellow pine beam into a modern reclaimed wood bench.

Make your own Photo Albums

2009-09-12T10:17:00.000-07:00

If you're like me, you come back from vacation not only with great pictures, but maps and other printed material from your travels. So why not take that road map, topo, trail map or nautical chart and make a photo album cover out of it? It's easier than you think.

Take a three ring binder and remove the three ring section by prying or drilling out the rivets. Then take an Exacto knife and cut the binder in half along the rivet line. It may take a few passes to get through the binder.
Measure out a section of map that you'd like to present on the front and back of the album. Measure about 4 or 5 inches out from there and cut the map. This extra portion will be folded over the edge of the album to the back of the cover sections. If the map is crinkled, iron it on a low setting to flatten (unless its printed on tyvek or plastic). To attach the map to the album cover, spray the map with spray adhesive, available at art stores. It's better to spray the map rather than the cover because then the cover won't be sticky from overspray.
Make sure you orient the map correctly on the cover so that the map is right side up on the covers. Then press the cover onto the map firmly. Fold the map carefully over each side of the album so that the map and the cover bond together. For a more professional look, you can cover the folded inside cover with a piece of heavy stock paper which will give a much cleaner look. Measure a piece of paper a few millimeters smaller than the cover and bond with spray adhesive.
The album covers are connected with album posts, available at art supply and craft stores. They can be expanded to make large albums with screw-in extenders. Drill three holes into the folding section of each cover (one half of the middle section you cut in the first step). Measure the holes so that they're the same distance apart as the three ring binder rings you removed earlier. This way, the album will fit standard photo album inserts which you will add later.

With the holes drilled, slide the posts through the inside of the flap so that when folded parallel to the binder, the posts stick straight up. Take another piece of map and attach to the posts. This will be the binding cover.
Then add the photo album inserts, into which you will insert your photos. It's a fun idea to add full page inserts with other items from your trip, like coasters, ticket subs, menus, etc. I'm not a big scrap-booker, but it's fun to see all the unique things people come across in their travels.

When all the pages are in the album, fold the binder section over the pages and punch holes to go over the album posts. It's a good idea not to punch these holes until after you add the pages because you never really know how thick your album will be until it's done, so you don't really know how wide your binder cover needs to be. Then add the back cover the same way you added the front. Attach the retaining bolts to the binder posts and you're done! A unique and special album cover to remind you of your amazing vacation!
And it's also fun to add flags and stickers to the album!

Canning Peaches

2009-09-11T16:58:00.001-07:00

I've been writing recently about preserving the fall harvest by freezing and canning. Peaches are a great candidate for canning as they are amazing in-season but are available only for a very short time. Canning preserves that seasonal freshness for those cold winter months when it's impossible to find good fresh fruit, let alone fruit that didn't fly in on an airplane. But don't think of those syrupy canned peaches from the grocery store- even when canned, fresh, local peaches are incredible.

Buy peaches that are fresh and local. Peaches bruise easily so if you buy peaches from far away they will have probably been picked when unripe and rock hard. Local peaches will have been picked at the peak of freshness and are simply incredible. Many farmer's markets will also sell baking peaches, which aren't quite as pretty as eating peaches but are just as delicious- and about half the price.

Start by peeling the peaches. The skins can be peeled by dumping the peaches in boiling water and then into ice water. This abrupt temperature change will split the skins right off the peaches. This isn't a required step, but does make the peaches more enjoyable to eat later, as the skins tend to get a little slimy when canned.
You can pack the peaches in a simple syrup, made of sugar and water, but for something special, try packing with apple juice. The peaches will be extra tasty and the color is incredible. On that note, adding an acid like lemon juice will protect against browning. I make a lot of wine, so I have high grade citric acids, which I used for these peaches. Look at those colors!
Once packed in the heated and sterilized Ball jars, fill with boiling apple juice or simple syrup and a dash of acid. Then seal the jars with new lids and boil in a canner for about 20 minutes. These canned peaches should last until at least next summer!

Pickling four Pecks of Pickles!

2009-09-08T17:20:00.000-07:00

Four pecks is, as everyone knows, a bushel. And last weekend I bought a bushel of fresh local Hudson valley Kirby cukes, perfect for pickling! That's a lot of pickles, but I just can't say no to a deal, and at $22 a bushel there was no way I could refuse!
I've been making pickles for a few years now. It's an easy project, but I've never made them in large quantities and I've never followed the directions exactly. This year I decided to be a little more exacting. I'd be making a lot of pickles and I wanted them to turn out perfect. The first step was to steep them in brine overnight. Almost all recipes I've read include this step but I'm not 100% sure why. I believe it has to do with prepping the enzymes in the pickles to convert sugars into lactic acid, at least thats what happens with naturally fermented pickles.

I had the idea to steep them in seawater and use seawater for the pickling brine. If I lived in Maine I'd probably try this, but I'm not sure I'd want to eat something soaked in New York City seawater. So I took two six gallon buckets and filled each with 3 gallons of water and 3 cups of salt.
The next day I got together my pots, jars, propane cooker and all my other implements of destruction. I started by cutting off the blossom end of the pickles, as they contain enzymes that can soften the pickles. Then I quartered the pickles. You can pickle whole cucumbers but you won't get as many in each jar and you'll go through more brine solution. Considering I was making a lot of pickles, space was going to be an issue. While I was chopping, I had a big pot on the cooker for processing and sterilizing the jars. It's a good idea to heat the jars before packing the pickles. Not just to sterilize them but they're less likely to shatter when processed later, due to the temperature change. With the jars packed, I scooped a spoonful of pickling spice into each jar. Some recipes call for the addition of the spice to the pickling solution but I don't see how that will get an equal amount of spice into each jar.

To make the brine, I took a gallon of standard 5% acidity white vinegar and mixed it with three gallons of water to make a 25% vinegar solution. I've made stronger solutions in the past, but most recipes I've seen call for something between 20% and 30% vinegar to water. When it comes to salt, honestly I just dumped it in until it tasted like the ocean! Use kosher or pickling salt, without iodine as it can cloud the solution, and be sure to use a lot. Also, use an enamel pot as apparently metal pots can also cloud the solution because of reaction between the metal and the acid in the vinegar.

I heated the solution to a boil and siphoned into the packed Ball jars. The brand new lids (required to ensure a good seal) and bands when on and then the jars went into the processing bath! This step ensures that any bacteria in the jars is killed. In truth, the jars will likely not be sterile, but the acidity of the pickling solution will prevent bacteria growth. I believe that's why most recipes call for only 5-10 minutes of boiling. You don't want to cook the pickles after all!
I ended up with about 25 or 30 quart jars jammed packed with pickle spears- and I even ran out of room so I packed some in non-Ball style jars I had around the house. This is fine, but they need to go in the fridge as they will spoil at room temperature due to the imperfect lid seal. In a week or two weeks these pickles should be good to eat, but they'll be best in about six months. Aside from the jars, which I saved from last year, this project cost about $6 for lids, less than $1 for salt, $22 for pickles, $1.50 for vinegar- so that's less than $1 a jar!

Any what are those golden red jars? You'll have to wait and read about it in a few days. OK... I canned peached too!

Making Tomato Sauce

2009-09-07T14:26:00.000-07:00

Newspapers and magazines fill dozens of pages a year on the joys of in-season tomatoes. There is something about a just-picked tomato that you just can't explain to people accustomed to eating starchy, flavorless tomatoes between October and June. A high-quality tomato is grown for flavor, not ship-ability (vice versa for those terrible tomatoes). Plus fresh, local and in-season produce is cheaper! To properly experience what a tomatoes is, and should be, check out your local farmers market!

This begs the question of how can we preserve high quality, inexpensive tomatoes into the winter months, when tomatoes are expensive and of poor quality? How about make sauce out of them! The best tomatoes for sauce are plum tomatoes because they are rather dense. Beefsteak tomatoes will make rather watery sauce which will need to be cooked down. Plum tomatoes on the other hand have very dense flesh and are perfect for sauce. I bought one and one ninth bushels of plum tomatoes from a farmer in the Hudson Valley for $25. Quite a deal!
Most recipes will tell you that you need to skin the tomatoes prior to making sauce. They reason that the skins don't dissolve when cooked and can distract from the presentation of the meal you will ultimately make with sauce. Skinning is actually pretty easy. Dunk the tomatoes in boiling hot water and then into ice water. The change in temperature will crack the skin and separate it from the tomato. This is all well and good, but when you're processing 60 pounds of tomatoes, that could take all day! I'm fine with the skins in the sauce, so I skipped this step. If you're making sauce with watery tomatoes, squeezing out some of the liquid center can also be done at this stage.

So, confident in my decision to skip the skinning stage, I pressed on, and washed, quartered and began sautéing the tomatoes. A 55,000 BTU propane cooker comes in handy when cooking this much sauce at once!

When the tomatoes are just beginning to soften, be careful to stir frequently to prevent scorching. At this stage, you can add fresh basil, garlic, etc. In no time you'll end up with something that looks like this:
At this stage, I would normally have ball jars ready for canning. But that's a nearly full 7.5 gallon pot! If I have 7 gallons of sauce, that would require 28 quart jars, which all have to be sterilized, filled, processed in a canner, etc. I don't have that many Ball jars nor the time for such an undertaking, so I took a shortcut and froze about 10 zip-loc bags of sauce. It's not as attractive product presentation, but it'll be just as delicious this winter when there won't be a fresh tomato anywhere in sight.

Building a Rustic Log Bench

2009-08-25T17:16:00.000-07:00

Have you ever made a log cabin? Me neither. Similar skills, but not quite as big of an undertaking, is making a long bench. You may have seen these at ski areas, camps and other rustic locations. They don't require a lot of skill to make, but they sure require a lot of effort. First thing's first- you'll need a large log. I'd strongly recommend a soft wood as it will be much easier to remove the center material. This is hemlock. It may have no commercial value, but it is a soft wood that is not sappy and chips and flakes easily. All characteristics that make this a good choice for this project.
I'm only hollowing out the middle, so I marked the ends with tape so I wouldn't accidentally cut the ends of the log. A true woodsman would probably use an adze to remove the center material, but I don't have an adze, so I used a sharp ax. Strip by strip, chop by chop I removed more and more material.
Eventually I had a fairly flat center section. However, having being chopped by an ax, it was rough and not quite bench ready. To smooth out the seating area, I used an abrasive pad on an angle grinder.
To finish it off, I used a belt sander and then a finish sander. It's certainly not perfectly flat, but it's perfect for a rustic bench.
And the finished product. Notice I rounded off the edges with the ax for a more rustic look. I built the base out of another log, with a notch cut out of the top with the same profile as the bottom of the log. This creates a sturdy base for the bench.
If you're leaving this bench outside, it's a good idea to seal it with an outdoor grade spar urethane in order to prevent rotting and bugs from destroying the wood.

Making Jam from Hunter-Gathered Raspberries

2009-08-07T15:07:00.000-07:00

It was just over one year ago that I wrote about a raspberry patch I found while on a bike ride. Like hunter-gatherers did thousands of years ago, I remembered this secret food gathering place and came back the following season for another harvest. And this year I came prepared with a big bag to gather all these fresh and tender berries! I can't reveal the secret location of this patch, but it's clearly hidden in plain view only a short bike ride from the George Washington Bridge in New Jersey. You could spend days plundering all the berries in the patch. I spent a little over an hour and collected about 6-7 pounds of raspberries. At the farmers market these go for $5 a pint!
The only way to preserve all this bounty is by freezing (a better choice for blueberries) or by making (and canning) jam. Making jam is remarkably easy. First you wash the berries and pick out any stems or other contaminants. Then put them in a pot and simmer until they liquefy. A potato masher can help with this process, especially if you want smoother jams.

The other ingredients are sugar and pectin. The pectin, which is made from apples and is available at most grocery stores, will help the jam "set". While making jam is relatively straightforward, follow the directions on the box carefully! I'm not usually one who advocates following directions, but with jam, if you don't have the proper ratios of sugar to fruit to pectin, the jam won't set up and you'll end up with fruit syrup. Follow directions for the fruit you're using that come in the box.
To process the jars, you'll need a big boiling pot. The water must cover the tops of the jars. Put the mason or ball jars in the water to sterilize them. Also sterilize the lids and rings. Always use new lids. Used lids probably will not seal to the jar.
When the fruit cooks down, you'll end up with something like this. Delicious! As per the directions in the pectin box for the fruit you are using, ladle the jam into the jars. Do this in small batches! It's usually not a good idea to double a recipe because you probably won't be able to ladle the jam into the jars quickly enough. Pectin is very heat sensitive and if you don't get it into the jars quickly enough (or if you skimped on sugar), the jam may not set.
Next boil the jars in your boiling pot, usually about 25 minutes. This kills any lingering bacteria and promotes a sterile final product, which is very important when you're not refrigerating food! Before refrigerators, canning was the only way to preserve fruit for more than a few days, let alone through the winter.
Canning is truly a lost art. It's a fun project and you'll be making delicious food for yourself. With the free fruit, these three quart jars of delicious jam only cost a few dollars for a box of pectin and new jar lids. And they'll last for up to a year or more!

News Review

2009-08-04T05:35:00.000-07:00

Have you ever tried to provide a nuance-less explanation to your parents of why they shouldn't eat feedlot beef or fruits flown in from other countries? And still failed? Here is the article for you.

Can you think of a more inopportune place to drill for oil and natural gas than your drinking water shed? Water so pure that it doesn't need to be filtered? And is still biologically productive enough to supply America's largest city? Think of the Catskills.

Call me a country boy in exile, but timbersports are tremendous fun to watch. But are getting harder to see.

A debate over ticks! An entomologist's idea of a riotous Saturday night!

Sans AC? It's not as hard as you think. I've been living in New York City without air conditioning for years. And I'm survived relatively unscathed. And I have an electric bill under $20 a month. Global warming aside, people have survived without air conditioning for thousands of years!

Crafty bears! I prefer when they are hibernating!

And panthers, just a few miles from New York City!

Never knew there were 101 kinds of salad? Well there is, and a lot of them sound pretty delicious.

Building a Jockey Box

2009-07-31T16:52:00.000-07:00

What is a jockey box you may ask? Well, a jockey box is simply a cooler which has a draft beer tap system integrated into it. These are fairly simple to build, assuming you have the requisite parts. You'll need a CO2 tank, a regulator, a cold plate, a faucet and a tap. This can easily run into the hundreds of dollars but once you have a system, the parts last forever. You can even save money by making a heat exchanger out of stainless steel tubing rather than buying a cold plate. Cold plates are more efficient and are less likely to create excess foam because there isn't typically a big change in piping gauges to jostle the beer, but stainless tubing is still a good option.

I already had the parts for this project so all I had to buy was the cooler. I measured the cold plate to make sure that it would fit in the bottom of the cooler. Then I measured the thickness of the faucet shank (the threaded piece that goes through the cooler) and drilled a hole in the center of the cooler.
With the hole drilled, I mounted the shank and tightened the rear nut. I'm also sealing the joint with silicone to prevent moisture from entering the foam insulation in the cooler. Once that gets wet, it would take forever to dry and would probably rot. The beer line connects right to the rear of the shank with the help of a washer and a retaining nut.
I also drilled a hole in the bottom of the cooler to drain the melted ice. Typically larger coolers have drain plugs but smaller coolers do not. The melted water will drain to a bucket below the jockey box, which will have a faucet in the pail to drain the water. I typically fill up yogurt containers with water to make ice for the cold plate. Then I refill the containers from the drain bucket to conserve water. Here I'm using brass pipe which will not rust when exposed to water.
Look at that faucet- read for action!
Now its time to hook up the tubing. Essentially, the CO2 is stored in the tank at very high pressures. The regulator controls the rate at which the gas is released, usually only a few pounds per square inches. The knob on the front of the regulator controls this pressure. If the pressure in the keg is lower than you have set on the regulator, then CO2 will be released into the keg. If the keg has higher pressure than the regulator (say if the keg is just tapped and has has a lot of pressure) then the regulator will release pressure from the keg until it is equalized with the regulator setting. When it comes to CO2 pressure, less is more. Unless you have a keg of flat beer, then you can jack up the pressure to 50 PSI and shake the keg to force CO2 into the beer, thereby recarbonating it.

From the regulator the CO2 travels through the air tubing to the side of the tap. From there it is released into the top of the keg. The pressure of the CO2 on the top of the beer pushes it down. A stainless steel tube runs from the tap to the bottom of the keg and pulls beer from the bottom out of the tap. This is why its often smarter to ice a keg from the bottom, rather than the top. From here the beer travels into the cold plate where it travels back and forth in the plate. The ice on the cold plate chills the plate which chills the beer. The efficency of the cold plate depends on the amount of ice and the temperature of the beer entering the cold plate. Chilling warm beer can require an enormous amount of ice. Cooling beer from 50 degrees to 40 will require relativly little ice. The cold beer leaves the cold plate and travels to the facuet, where it waits to be poured and enjoyed.

The tubing is hardware store standard issue. For the beer, be sure to buy the cloudy tubing. The clear stuff is not food grade and can leach toxins. Check the labels to be sure! The air tube is usually the reinforced clear tubing. Compressor tubing isn't necessary at these low pressures. Make sure you're buying tubing with the right inside diameter to match the beer and air fittings and similarly, make sure all your fittings match. Beer lines are usually an inside diameter of 3/16th of an inch and air lines are typically 3/8ths, but this is not always the case. Fortunately fittings on taps, shanks and cold plates can all be easily switched so that all match. The last thing you want is a beer leak or a CO2 tank that goes empty after only one keg. Similarly, teflon tape can be used on the tank threads to prevent leaks but a washer isn't necessary as most regulators have built in washers. A washer will be required on the faucet and the tap.
Be sure to leave enough tubing to reach a few feet away from the jockey box to reach the keg. This set up is for a commercial stanky keg, but home brewers like me can easily set this up for Cornelius kegs with ball-lock or pin-lock fittings available from homebrew stores.
Cheers!

News Review

2009-07-21T05:30:00.000-07:00

The Street Farmer. An uplifting story about a man changing his community through gardening and good food.

DIY is spreading throughout NYC! Tenants are even helping out landlords with basic repairs.

All is not well with our local tomatoes. And the culprit? Mass-produced seedlings sold at home centers. Disease and pestilence are common arguments against CAFOs (Confined Animal Feeding Operations) and mega-farms and I guess the logic works equally well for plant farms. The bigger you get, especially when it's a mono-culture with no genetic diversity, the higher chance for a disease to wipe out the entire crop.

An excellent article, superbly written about the English Pub.

And the ultimate DIY? DIY death! A kinda-creepy article about a guy who, in addition to sharing my name, was buried near his home in a pine casket. When you think about it, it makes sense. Funeral services can cost upwards of $6,000, they put you in a coffin made of exotic hardwood from the rain forest and they pump you full of formaldehyde and other nasty chemicals which will contaminate the soil (bet you didn't know cemeteries are all highly contaminated!). Rest in peace.

Edible Manhattan wrote a great article about my brother and I a few months ago. This article was just published online.

Midsummer Night's Gardening

2009-07-15T15:09:00.000-07:00

It's mid-summer and I've already harvested a few early season crops (well... beans). There is still time to plant vegetables with a short growing season, such as green vegetables. To prepare the soil, I pulled the old vegetable plants (and lots of weeds!) and put them in the compost pile. Then I turned the soil with a spade...
...and planted lettuce, arugula, broccoli and scallions seeds. I even turned an old wine crate into a planter.
And here's a few pics of the New York City garden. Tomatoes, peppers, squash and cukes are starting to arrive!

And the hostas are flowering too!

Beer Review: Blueberry Ale

2009-07-14T18:29:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe it was April when I brewed this Blueberry Ale, but the three months have treated this beer well. The picture hardly does this beer justice, but this beer is a bright purple with a bright pink head. It almost looks like a champagne-like framboise but with an even more iridescent color. The flavor is right on too! Light, crisp, fruity and very drinkable!

Friends in the Garden

2009-07-13T18:18:00.000-07:00

I've been neglecting the garden slightly less than the blog, but still enough to have and enormous amount of weeds that needed pulling last weekend. But I also had a bunch of beans waiting for me as well. Nothing like New York City grown produce!
I also found a little friend crawling on the Chocolate Mint. This is a fire fly which emits light from a bioluminescent organ on the tip of its body. The light is used to attract mates in a morse code-like form of communication. And they sure are pretty to look at.

News Review

2009-07-02T06:25:00.000-07:00

OK, I've been on vacation and have been neglecting the blogging. So to hold my seven readers over until next week, here's a Michael Jackson-less round-up of news that I did not miss while I was away:

More information than you probably want to know about free range pork, and the rebuttal of why the article is bullshit.

CNN is really on the forefront of urban gardening.

Live the life of the urban hippie! Just read my blog too.

Energy and raw materials from algae? Sounds too good to be true, but I hope it is.

The Times is also on the forefront of urban gardening.

In an effort to reduce the already miniscule amount of the natural world available to New Yorkers, the city plans to kill geese. But nature finds a way! Especially those wily 'coons!

And last but not least, the article from Edible Manhattan about Manhattan Meadery is finally online!

The Wedding Draft Board

2009-06-17T05:33:00.001-07:00

There are many wedding traditions, and I'm starting a new one: the personalized draft beer sign! I have a good friend named Andrew who is marrying a beautiful kind girl named Karen. Because of my brewing, draft system and other crafty adventures, they asked if I would design a draft beer system for their wedding. They're getting married in Maine, so I thought, why not make them a carved sign out of driftwood and mount the draft faucets directly to the wood? Fortunately I had just the piece of drift wood, a board I found while kayaking in the islands off Stonington, Maine. I like to make picture frames out of driftwood, but this special piece of wood will have a different future.

The first step is to approximate the layout and type of the sign and then to print out the letters you plan to carve. You only need to cut out one of each letter. I like to measure from the middle of the board so all the letters are even and spaced correctly. Then trace out the letters with a pencil.
Next comes the carving. With a high quality set of sharp chisels, you can usually carve letters quite quickly. But this wood, being driftwood and all, was either brittle and rotten or spongy. It was very difficult to carve and took a long time. However, because this is a rustic driftwood sign, the imperfectness adds to the charm.

Carving is not as hard as it appears. Even carving stars is relatively easy. All you do is score the wood between the two sides of the cut you plan to make. This will crate a breaking point for the wood and prevent it from chipping outside of the material you wish to remove. Then simply take the chisel and press down at a shallow angle from the outside of the cut toward the score line you just made. Then do the same from the other side. Remove the material and repeat until you have a "V" as deep as you'd like. Then simply clean up the cut. The bottom of the "V" will lie directly beneath the score line you created, in the middle of the letter.

Making some progress! I have the mallet in the photo, but it is almost never necessary when carving. This is a job of finesse, not power.

I typically gold leaf signs I carve, but for this sign I thought a light coat of paint would look more rustic and authentic. Not to mention the monetary and environmental costs of gold. In fact, there is a battle going on in Alaska right now over whether to build the so called Pebble Mine which would destroy one of the most productive salmon fisheries in the world. Gold is bad!

Anyway, I decided to use a pickling stain which is a light white wash stain which lets the grain of the wood show through. If you've ever seen those faux-vintage types of furniture, this is what they use to get that effect. I found a quart of this stain in the trash a few months ago. Bringing the total cost of this project to $0. A few hours with an artist paint brush and this is what the finished product looks like.

The cost of the tap system was another matter. I have almost all of the expensive parts including CO2 tanks, regulators, cold plates, taps, draft towers, etc. but buying hoses and all the little parts at home depot gets expensive fast.

For those not in the know, a tap system essentially works like this: A CO2 tank hold carbon dioxide gas at very high pressures. CO2 is the same gas that provides those pleasant carbonation bubbles in your beer. The rate at which the CO2 is released is control by the regulator, which takes several thousands of pounds of CO2 pressure and releases it at only a few pounds per square inch at a time. Always use less pressure than you think you need, or you’ll end up with foamy beer gushing out of the tap.

The CO2 travels via an air hose to the keg where the tap releases the air into the top of the keg. This creates pressure on the beer at the bottom of the keg. The only way out is through a metal tube in the middle of the keg that runs up to the tap. The beer flows out of the tap and towards the cold plate. This is why if you have a warm keg, put ice on the bottom of the keg, not just the top.

If you have an icy cold keg, the cold plate isn’t necessary, but if you want to chill the beer down a bit, a cold plate is a big help. Essentially a cold plate is a big piece of aluminum through which the beer flows. Put ice on the cold plate and the beer will drop significantly in temperature. Another tip is to insulate the lines with foam copper pipe insulation to prevent temperature gain while in the tubes. Also, only use the cloudy plastic tubing for beer. The clear tubing is not food grade.

After the cold plate, its off to the faucet. It could be the little black picnic faucet, a draft tower, a faucet mounted to a board like I have here or a lot of other variations. The problem is each one of these parts is kinda expensive. You’ll probably be in a few hundred bucks before you know it. But once you throw down for a nice system, you’ll be set for the rest of your life!

Cheers!

Racking the Chocolate Porter

2009-06-12T06:02:00.000-07:00

The Chocolate Porter has been fermenting nicely. A few days ago fermentation tapered off and it was time to rack into the glass carboys for the secondary fermentation. The gravity was 1.014, a little higher than normal, but not unexpected as the chocolate and caramel grains I used add some unfermentable sugars, and some sweet chocholate and caramel notes.

The beer is currently about 4.7% ABV but the gravity will probably drop a bit over the next week or two. If it drops of 1.010 that should be around 5.2% ABV.

Stay tuned for kegging, and a taste test!

More News!

2009-06-11T05:24:00.000-07:00

It ain't easy being green... so pay someone to help you make fairly obvious changes to your lifestyle?

Or pay someone $15,000 to redo your backyard? Wouldn't a few hundred bucks and a weekend get you to the same place?

Wild fruit, free for the taking! Are we sure the Times isn't pilfering ideas from this blog? The evidence continues to mount. After all, I've been harvesting greens, apples and blackberries from Central Park for years.

The beaver is back! After being hunted and trapped to near extinction during colonial times, the beaver (and other oft forgotten wildlife) is back! Check out this pic of a beaver dam I came across while hiking in the Catskills. It was enormous!

Beware of thy bird, for it carries disease and pestilence. In fact I frequently see chickens roaming empty lots in Harlem. In fact, they were clucking away just last weekend.

Pedicabs are bicycles too! Support alternative forms of transportation in New York City!

Tear down those dams! Because seriously, they are environmentally atrocious.

Tomatoes and Peppers in the Ground

2009-06-10T06:00:00.000-07:00

My early start to the gardening season means I'll be enjoying some delicious fruits and vegetables in the near future. Unfortunately, I wasn't so organized with my transplanting. My tomatoes and peppers didn't make it into the ground until last week, a little on the late side for my climate. I bought my plants from the Greenmarket in Union Square. I really should have started my own from seed, but I don't have much natural light in my apartment which has been a challenge in the past.

I treated the soil with some manure and popped the plants into the ground.
I'm planting my tomatoes about two feet apart. Space is at a premium in my garden but if you crowd the plants they won't do as well.

I'm planing varieties that produce smaller fruit, as I've had more luck with these in the past. I just don't get enough sun to produce huge beefsteak tomatoes. I do have great luck with cherry tomatoes and spicy peppers though!

I'm also growing a few plants in containers, to help maximize space. I find clay pots in the trash regularly. People are always throwing away houseplants in my neighborhood. A beautiful pot for free!

News Review

2009-06-09T05:48:00.000-07:00

Beater bikes are popular! Perhaps even trendy? This article explores Brooklyn's used bike micro-economy and how illogical it is. Perhaps try something slightly more authentic, thrifty and self sufficient: find a bike in the trash and fix it up yourself. Like this Nishiki, or this other Nishiki, or this beach cruiser I found in the trash and fixed up.

Panthers found! Quite close to NYC!

Think the global warming impact of your milk and your beef is only the diesel from the farm to you? Think again. It may not be carbon, but methane is a potent greenhouse gas which is a bigger contributor to global warming than many people think.

Is healthy food only for rich people? A look at the prices at the trendy Greenmarkets around New York City may make you think so.

Interesting article discussing some questionably conceived plans to make a self-sufficient aquatopia on a rusty barge. I'm as self sufficient as I possibly can be (that is the title of this blog after all), but this strikes me as just a little disingenuous, delusional and dramatic. What about spending $150,000 to live on a barge for a few months is self sufficient or thrifty? That's enough money to finance several lifetimes of a truly self-sufficient lifestyle with minimal environmental impact.

A beautiful explication of the old addage, "money doesnt buy happiness".

Chocolate Brew

2009-06-04T09:21:00.001-07:00

No, there isn't any chocolate in the beer, or coco beans. The chocolate comes from chocolate malt which is a malt that has been heavily roasted, almost to the point of black patent. Chocolate and black patent are standard malts for stouts and porters but they differ slightly in flavor and color. Black patent is roasted until it is almost burnt. It imparts almost no fermentable sugar but gives a burnt or smoky flavor to beer with a very dark color. Use this sparingly as it can overpower your beer! Chocolate malt (about 2 pounds here for 10 gallons) is dark but imparts a delightful nutty, chocolate-like flavor and hence can be used in greater volume. I'm pairing that up with some caramel malt (about 2.5 pounds) which has caramelized sugars which are not converted to simple sugars by enzymes in the beer. These are not easy to ferment and yield a sweeter caramel-like beer. As usual, I'm using a knee-high woman's stocking as my grain bag. A durable, reusable, economical and assessable alternative to grain bags from the brewing store.

For the base malt, I'm using the dried malt extract I just bought. Stored in a plastic pale, kept dry and away from light, this flour-like malt will last for at least a year. I used four pitchers worth, enough to make a strong batch of beer.

For hops, it's my new shipment of northern brewer! Look at that hoppy goodness! I'm using about 3 ounces for boiling hops and about 3/4 of an ounce for finishing hops for a 10 gallon batch. This should contribute a fair about of bittering characteristics with only a little bit of aroma. Hops will have a very different impact on your beer depending on when you add them as hops are very temperature dependant. Boil them for an hour and it will bring out the bittering resins. Boil them for only a few minutes and you'll aromas of the essential oils.

With the boil completed, it's time to chill the beer. This wort chiller will bring down the temperature quickly which contributes to "cold break" a term for the settling or "flocculating" of proteins in the beer, which contribute to haze and off-flavors. Be sure not to pour all the trub at the bottom of the kettle into the fermenter. All the hop essence is already in the beer and keeping this stuff will only hurt the beer.

Here is a hope cone that I grew in my New York City garden last season. Look at those lupin glands! This little bit of brewing gold is where all the hop flavor is hiding.

I dry hopped half the batch with the last of my 2008 New York City grown hops. The rest I relied on the brewers gold finishing hops in the whole batch. It will be interesting to see how the two batches compare.

For yeast, I'm using a liquid American ale yeast. The starting gravity was 1.050 which should make some strong brew! Stay tuned as this project develops!

The Ski Bench Project

2009-06-02T05:21:00.000-07:00

The frequent readers of this blog may have noticed that I have been collecting skis for some mystery purpose. Every time I see a pair of skis in the trash on the streets of New York City (which is more often than you'd think), I grab them! It's been a little while now and I've collected enough skis to form critical mass for a really cool project. I made an Adirondack chair out of skis a few years back so this time I decided to make a bench. Or more specifically, a park bench made entirely out of old skis. Look at these beauties, all in a row.

Look at these metal bindings! You don't see skis like this anymore!Before you can construct, you must deconstruct. In other words, removing the bindings from the skis. After all, sitting on bindings wouldn't be very comfortable. I removed the binding screws with an electric drill, saving the screws to reuse later in the project.

Most screws came out easily but some were seized or I stripped the screw head. For these I used a long screw driver to pry them out of the ski. This did not damage the ski, at least not for my purposes.

Look at all those bindings! You really don't think of bindings as being a heavy part of the ski, but a garbage can of dozens of them becomes very heavy.

Next I designed the bench. Essentially I decided to copy a park bench, with a set of backs, legs, arm rests, etc. with slats running between each end.

Next I started cutting. Skis are made of fiberglass, metal and wood (or a core made of foam). This presents a challenge to cut because of the different materials. The best thing I've found is a multi-purpose abrasive cutting wheel on a circular saw. It doesn't do that well on the wood, but it is sure better than a wood blade. An angle grinder is great for touch ups but doesn't cut as straight as a circular saw.

Also, be sure to use hearing protection, eye protection and breathing protection. You'll want to shower right after cutting because fiberglass dust is very itchy. Keep it away from your lungs, eyes and skin to the greatest extent possible.

Look at all those skis ready for a new life. Wouldn't it be a shame to just throw these away?

Here are the two end pieces constructed. With back and bottom slats with an arm rest. This design mimics, on a slightly larger scale, a park bench.

To attach the sections that join at a right angle, I used an angle bracket from the hardware store. I cut the bracket into sections about two inches long. To attach the bracket to the skis, I reused the binding screws. After all, why buy new screws when you can reuse screws specifically designed for skis? To attach the brackets, I had to drill pilot holes, just like when installing bindings on skis.

Next I started installing the slats. Because these skis were all different lengths and widths, I just eyeballed the positioning. I kept pairs of skis apart from each other and pointed skis in different directions for aesthetics. To attach the skis to the chair, I drilled a hole through the slat ski and the base ski and attached them with a galvanized carriage bolt. And the final result! Notice the stringer in the back which will give the chair torsional rigidity. Because this is a park bench design, it is meant to be bolted to the floor for stability. I leaned it against a railing so it wouldn't tip over and it was very solid. You could also bolt it to another set of skis which lay on the ground. For stability and to make a really cool sled!

Cook with a Wood Fire!

2009-05-29T14:48:00.000-07:00

The Times recently did an article on the joys of cooking over a wood fire. Though simplistic, the article was interesting. I've been cooking over a wood fire for years; everything from camping trips and backyard fire pits to the wood stove in winter. This past weekend we had a campfire and decided to grill up some burgers and sausages. The food came from a local farm in Vermont. Grass fed beef with local bread, early season greens and bread. What could be better?

First, the fire! We collected rocks and made a fire ring. The rocks absorb the heat of the fire and keep it contained in the pit.

We kept loading on wood and eventually the fire was a good size and quite hot. We're burning oak and maple. Not quite as aromatic as apple wood, but a lot easier to come by.

An indispensable part of campfire grilling is this handy grill basket. The food is locked inside the grill box which allows for great control and easy flipping. When cooked, just flip open the basket and take out the food. The basket also allows for extra control of food placement in relation to the embers, which is a concern with a campfire because you don't have the same temperature control as with a grill.

When the fire has burned down to hot coals, it's time to do some grilling. You really don't want to to cook over flames, but rather over the hot embers.

Take a look at that delicious meal!
The burgers and the sausages were delicious. Starting with grass fed local beef always helps, but cooking over an open fire makes it all the better.

New Beer Ingredients!

2009-05-29T14:38:00.000-07:00

It's a special event that happens only once or twice a year... I am of course talking about the delivery of bulk beer brewing ingredients. I ordered specialty grains and hops by the pound! New brewing toys and most important of all, a 50 pound sack of dried malt extract. Fifty pounds may sound like a lot of malt, and it is! Enough to brew many many kegs of beer. I prefer malt extract, which essentially like flour, because it doesn't spoil and it gives you a broad range of potential beer styles to choose from.
Stay tuned for some new batches of beer!

Fix (don't trash) that Blender

2009-05-29T06:07:00.000-07:00

The Times just published an article on how more folks are fixing their appliances rather than throwing them away and buying new ones. Apparently people feel poorer, so they're opting to pay someone to fix an appliance even when the cost to do so it a high percentage of the cost of a new appliance. But that begs the question, why not just fix it yourself? Sure the parts might be pricey but most problems can be fixed by just swapping out parts. If its a systemic problem, it's probably worth throwing it away because the unit will never work correctly again, but fixing a broken switch or belt is very straightforward. You'll save money on labor (not to mention the repair man hassle) and you'll save money by not having to buy something new. You'll also be helping the environment by not consuming more than is necessary.

Take for example this blender. This is a sturdy Waring blender which should last forever. Just like the ones on your grandmother's kitchen counter. But often times the chuck, which drives the cutting blade, gets worn out and looks something like this:
But why throw away the whole unit for one little broken part? You can save money and save resources by fixing it yourself. Many appliances like blenders, garbage disposals, etc. have an allen wrench or screw at the bottom of the unit below the motor. This allows you to spin the shaft, or hold it steady and remove parts from the other end of the shaft.

I purchased the chuck for $5 from a company on the Internet. Holding a screwdriver at the bottom of the motor housing so the motor wouldn't spin, I took a wrench and removed the chuck at the top of the unit. The unit had standard threads (righty-tighty, lefty-loosy). Then I just screwed on the new chuck and this blender was good as new.

My Black Thumb Goes Green

2009-05-29T05:41:00.001-07:00

It's been a cold spring but it doesnt seem to have bothered my plants. It's nearly June and we've only had a few days in the 70s, a rarity for a New York City spring. Despite the cool weather, every plant in my garden is out of the ground and growing supringly quickly. The tomatoes and peppers will be transplanted this weekend and we should have our first crop of snow peas shortly! Here are some pics:

The beans are out of the ground and looking proud!

The peas are looking even better. Snow peas love cool weather so this spring has been perfect weather for them. In years past the weather has turned hot so quickly the plants just couldn't cope. And look at all those flowers! Flowers are not just for looks, they are to attract pollinating insects. Once pollinated these flowers will turn into delicious snow peas.
I've had a rose bush for years but it has always refused to blossom. Until recently that is! I am not that great a vegetable gardener and I know even less about flowers. But it sure is pretty when it works out! This rose bush has at least a dozen beautiful pink roses.
The herbs are all out of soil and looking particularly delicious. This is flat leaf parsley.

The Merlot grapes are looking healthy as well. Lets hope for a decent harvest this year!

The hop vines must grow about 6 inches a day. I'm going to need to add another section to my trellis!

The strawberries survived the winter and have just started fruiting. There is nothing like home grown strawberries. So much better than those starchy ones from California.

The squash and pumpkin are also out of the ground and starting to grow rapidly.

Lets hope for some warmer weather and the garden should really take off. Compared to years past, this years garden is looking to be the best yet!

Dirty Hands and Canned Food

2009-05-27T05:57:00.000-07:00

Although more suited for the fall harvest, the Times just published a good article on canning. I've canned pickles, apple jams and fruit jams but this year I definitely need to branch out to tomatoes!

The Times also has a great article on the joys of working with your hands. This article primarily focuses on careers "in the trades" versus "in an office" but I think these extremes miss a middle ground. No matter what you do for a living, you can always pick up crafty hobbies like gardening, woodworking, tinkering and fixing things. This blog is dedicated to the notion that these hobbies are interesting and rewarding and are not nearly as hard as they seem. There is a tremendous amount of satisfaction in taking something that is broken and making it work, taking wood and making something useful or taking raw ingredients and producing a finished product. So no matter what career you are in, you CAN become more self sufficient!

New Pics from the Garden!

2009-05-21T09:21:00.001-07:00

When I say new, I mean from over a week ago. The paucity of prepossessing posts owes to my lack of a functioning Internet connection. But don't worry, more interesting projects are coming! In the meantime, here are some pictures of my New York City garden.

The strawberries are back and better than ever. Look at those flowers!
The peas are enjoying this cool spring. They look strong and hearty!

I have about 8 clay pots (all of which were trash finds!) and each is planted with a different herb. My chocolate mint was the only one to survive the winter, but the seeds are doing remarkably well.

The vine veggies are out of the ground too: pumpkins, squash, zucchini and pickling cucumbers.

The Merlot and Cabernet vines are also looking healthy. I'm hoping to beat my bumper crop of three grapes from last year.

Racking Summer Brews

2009-05-21T05:44:00.000-07:00

My first batch of 2009 summer beers is coming along nicely. I just racked the belgian white and the blueberry ale into seconary carboys. I didn't taste them but they sure smelled good!
Check out that blueberry color! Can you believe both of these beers were made from the same batch of beer? That's what a few pounds of New Jersey blueberries will do!

News Review

2009-05-21T05:39:00.001-07:00

Some interesting news, from the week that was.

Make your own ginger ale. I think I might!

Poisonous plants. We're not talking weeds here!

Cooking food over wood, rather than charcoal. I like the sound of this.

A message to all the urban gardeners out there: beware of what might be lurking your soil!

Big companies are co-opting the local movement. Discuss.

Building a Dolly

2009-05-13T05:34:00.000-07:00

A dolly is a simple machine that can save an enormous amount of back breaking work. The most common dolly is the rectangular dolly used by movers but they can also be used to move around woodworking tools in your shop, heavy garbage cans, etc. The one I'm making here is to move fermenters. I usually use between 5 and 15 gallons containers which means that they can get pretty heavy and hard to move around. Most fermenters are round so I decided to class this project up a little bit and make a round dolly. This method can be used whenever you're cutting a round piece of wood, such as a table top.

The base of the dolly will be a piece of outdoor grade plywood I found in the garbage. Free is always better than paying for something! The basic plan is to attach another piece of wood to this plywood and cut that second piece of wood in a circle, leaving a lip along the edge of the dolly to hold the fermenter, then attach casters to the bottom. I found a bunch of casters in the garbage recently, which I've been on the lookout for!

The first step is to draw out the lip of the dolly. The lip will hold the fermenter in place on the dolly. I found the center of the board by measuring across both axises of the board. I then drove a nail to mark the center. I tied a string to the nail and a pencil to the other end of the string in order to make a basic compass. If you were making a table top you may want a more precise compass, but the jig described later will clean up any rough edges. The inside lip mark has a one inch wider diameter (1/2 inch on each side) than the bottom of the fermenter and the outside edge is about 6 inches wider than that (which gives a 3 inch lip around the outside edge).

And the result.
Next I applied glue to the space between the marks I just made, being careful not to get glue on the interior as that will make it difficult to remove that section later.

For the lip I'm using some scrap pine boards that I found in the trash. These were shelves in a broken bookshelf I believe. I clamped the boards...

.... and then bound the piece together with screws. I originally didn't want to use screws but the pine boards were warped and needed a little more help holding the piece together. This wont be a problem when I cut the piece because the screws are in the middle of the lip and the router bit will only pass on the inside and the outside of the track.
A while back I made a jig for my router to cut circular pieces of wood. The jig is essentially a long piece of thin plywood that attaches to the router in lieu of the faceplate. The jig is attached (with a nail or screw) to the center of the piece of wood to be cut and rotates around that center. To measure properly, make sure you measure to the correct side of the router bit. When cutting the outside edge of the lip, I'll need to measure to the inside edge of the bit. When cutting the inside edge of the lip, I'll need to measure to the outside edge of the bit. Be sure to use a flat cutting router bit to make these cuts.

Here is a picture of the set up, after one pass with the router. Because this piece is so thick, I'm going to make two passes cutting about 3/4" at a time. It would strain the router and possible damage the piece if I tried to cut too much on one pass.

And the outside cut is complete.

To cut the inside piece, I needed to make sure the depth of the router bit matched with width of the top board. Too shallow and the board won't be cut all the way through and too thick and I'll cut into the plywood base.

Making the inside cut with the jig, just like the outside cut.

With the cut made, I pried out the inside piece which came out easily. Notice also that I drilled holes for the casters at four equidistant points on the dolly. Because the height of the threads on the casters isn't as long as the dolly is thick, I drilled bigger holes to countersink the bolts. Conveniently, this will also keep the bolts out of the way when loading things onto the dolly.

I had enough materials left over to make a second smaller dolly for carboys!

The project wouldn't be complete without a nice paint job. First the priming...

Then the paint! This was a fun project. This dolly will certainly save a lot of effort moving around heavy brewing equipment. Plus all the supplies for this project were free- found in the trash on the streets of New York City near my apartment.

News Review

2009-05-06T07:57:00.000-07:00

More evidence that the Times reads my blog! Preserving food by freezing? Isn't that exactly what I wrote about last summer?

Interesting article on pollinators. I have my own issues with pollinators, or the lack thereof!

Yet another homage to the bee.

And to round out the food groups, an article on how bad eating too much meat is for you, and the earth.

A bargain hunters guide to New York. Though with suggestions on renting a beach house in the Hamptons, what art to buy and what to do with $10,000, these suggestions are not useful on the planet most people live on.

How to Prune a Tree

2009-05-03T10:44:00.000-07:00

Pruning trees is a relatively straightforward job but there are a few things to keep in mind. I'm not an arborist, but from what I've read, the best time to prune a tree is in the fall when the tree has lost its leaves. Spring isn't the best time because the tree just spent all of its energy reserves growing new leaves. This is one of the weakest time of the year for the tree and it doesn't need the stress of pruning. If you're removing dead branches, it really doesn't matter when you remove the branches because they're already dead.

With some trees, such as fruit trees, pruning actually causes the tree to produce more fruit. The tree will turn its energy from growing branches to growing fruit. Perhaps it's some sort of evolutionary response; stress causes the tree to produce more fruit and hence more seeds.

One thing to avoid when pruning a tree is getting half way though the branch and having the weight of the branch crack the branch or peel bark down the trunk of the tree. This would really stress out the tree! To avoid this, make a cut underneath the branch about 1/3rd of the way through. Using a sharp saw makes this process much easier! Then make the final cut from the top of the branch toward the branch you are removing. The undercut will prevent the branch from ripping the bark off the rest of the tree. When the branch is off, make the final cut toward the trunk of the tree.

Slope the cut away from the rain. Be sure to leave a few inches of the branch on the tree. If you cut it too close to the trunk, it may create a dead spot. If you've ever seen trees with rotten sections on the side of them its because someone cut a branch too close to the tree. Water collects in these areas and the the tree starts to rot.

How to Repot a Potted Plant

2009-05-03T10:16:00.001-07:00

Repotting a plant seems pretty self explanatory, but there are a few tips and tricks for a happy plant. Signs that you need to repot your plant include a plant that is clearly too big for its pot and has roots that circle the bottom of the pot and are coming out of the drainage holes of the pot. A crowded plant isn't getting nutrients or good access to water. I found this cool looking glazed pot in the trash. Perfect for replanting this houseplant. To remove the old plant from the pot, put your hand over the stem in order to support the root ball when it comes out of the pot.
Tip the plant over and tap the pot. After a few good taps the plant will fall out of the pot. A knife can help separate the soil from the pot. Because the roots are so crowded in the pot, there shouldn't be too much loose soil.
And voila! Look at these jumbled roots. If your roots look like this, its a good idea to gently separate the roots to give them a head start in their new home. This plant looks overdue for a transplanting! It's also a good idea to remove some of the old soil. Don't remove too much or it will be difficult to separate the roots in the new soil. Compacted roots are what we're trying to avoid!
Put some potting soil or compost into the bottom of the new pot. Lightly press down to compact the soil. You want the soil in the bottom of the pot plus the height of the root ball to be about two inches below the rim of the pot.
Fill in soil around the outside of the root ball. This new soil will inject a lot of nutrients and will hold water for the plant.
And give your plant a good watering!

Hot to Replace a Watch Battery

2009-04-30T06:07:00.001-07:00

Why pay a jeweler to replace a watch battery when you can do it yourself quickly, easily and cheaply. First thing you'll need is a new battery. Most watches will indicate the proper replacement battery with a code number etched into the rear of the watch. It's much easier to remove the rear face of the watch and replace the battery immediately than to remove the battery and take it to the store to buy a new one. Plus you're much less likely to lose a screw or other tiny part. Many watches use the common "2016" battery which is available at most drug stores. For uncommon batteries, you might need to do some digging.

The next thing you'll need is a set of jeweler's screwdrivers, sometimes called "precision" screwdrivers. They're only a few dollars at the hardware store and you'll be surprised how often you use them on electronics, watches, etc.

This Timex Ironman watch has four tiny Phillips screws holding on the rear plate. Unfortunately my tiny Phillips screwdrivers did not fit so I used a Flathead screwdriver to remove the screws. With the rear plate removed, carefully remove the gasket that seals the plate and prevents moisture from getting inside the watch. If you watch is like mine, the battery is held against the watch mechanism with a small plastic and metal sleeve. This sleeve is released with a small clip and the battery slides out. Make sure to install the new battery in the same direction as the old one. If the watch mechanism comes out, which happened to me, you need to make sure it is lined up properly when it is reinstalled. The buttons on the outside of the watch have small pistons that run through the watch housing and press against tiny spring clips on the watch mechanism in order to activate the different options on the watch. You need to make sure that the spring switches are lined up with the button pistons. If they aren't lined up properly then the buttons on the outside of the watch will not work. I had to reopen my watch several times before I figured out that the switches were not lined up properly.

When the new battery is in, reinstall the gasket into the grove on the back of the watch. Place the rear plate on the watch and reinstall the screws. Tweezers can help pick up the tiny screws and get them in the holes just don't squeeze too tightly or the screw will fly across the room and you'll never find it. Be careful replacing the gasket and the rear plate. If it's not lined up exactly right, your watch will no longer be waterproof.

It's Planting Time in the Garden

2009-04-29T18:03:00.000-07:00

Although it's about 50 degrees right now, it was 90 degrees yesterday and 85 degrees this past weekend. Vacillating temperatures aside, we're getting pretty close to the summer growing season in New York City. I'm not quite ready to plant seedlings like tomatoes, as one cold snap would kill them, but with the recent warm weather I decided to plant my remaining seeds. But before that, here are some pictures of the garden as it looks now.

The hops continue to amaze with their aggressive growth. It's not even be May yet, but they're almost two feet hight. I'll definitely need to add some height to the trellis! The peas are all fully out of the ground and about two inches tall. These early spring solders love the cold! I hope it doesn't get too warm too quickly. The blast of 90 degree temperatures didn't seem to hurt the seedlings but prolonged hot weather can do some serious damage. These guys need cool nights and mild days for their early spring crop. I'll plant tomatoes in these beds, a plant that prefers warmth, to make the most efficient use of my small New York City garden.
The grape vines have been slow to bud and slow to sprout leaves, but they're getting there. Hopefully I'll have a bigger harvest than last year.
On to the seed planting. Before I plant anything, I need to prepare the beds. The soil in New York City is, not surprisingly, pretty poor. My area of the city hasn't been a farm for 150 years, so the soil is pretty poor. I've been improving it with compost from my table scrap composter for years, along with my yard waste compost pile seen below.
Over several years, the soil has been improving with every shovel-full of organic material. Just a year or two ago this was nothing but leaves. But now it's black gold!
Unfortunately, even though I compost everything degradable that comes out of kitchen, my soil still needs some extra help. So I enlisted some help from Scotts, via a nice hummus and manure mixture. This not only adds nutrients to the soil, but adds in drainage and general soil health. After prepping the beds with a spade and pitch fork, I planted the seeds. The candidates for this year are sugar pumpkins, butternut squash, bush beans, pickling cucumbers, summer squash, Italian flat leaf parsley, oregano and Thai basil. I try to plant smaller vegetables as my yard doesn't get a lot of sun and large veggies tend not to do as well. Every year the garden has gotten better, and I give credit to the soil! Maybe this year I can get a nice crop of pumpkins!I also managed to plant some grass seed. I'm sort of against the whole lawn thing, but there is something about lying in the grass that is just incredible. Most of my grass survived the winter, but it was a little patchy. A pitch fork to the patches and some grass seed and we should have a nice lawn in a month or two.
Stay tuned for lots of summertime activity in the garden!

Street Find: Castors

2009-04-28T18:01:00.001-07:00

Guess what I found on the street the other day? A broken commercial rolling clothing rack! The rack may be broken but the castors were all in perfect working order. For that matter, I could have also used the chrome piping for a project! Unfortunately there are limits on what you can store when you live in New York City, and if you really need something, the trash shall provide. These castors will certainly come in handy for a cool project. These cost about $15-$20 each at the industrial supply store so this was easily a $120 find.

Street Find: Vintage Singer Sewing Machine

2009-04-24T16:29:00.001-07:00

Check out this vintage Singer sewing machine I found in the trash today! This just goes to show you that you never know what you'll find on the streets of New York City! This is a Model 31-15 Commercial Sewing Machine with serial number AC-08335. I looked this up on the Singer website and apparently this machine was made in 1929 in Elizabeth, NJ. It's a commercial machine made for tailors and must weigh 60 pounds!

I don't have any use for this but some collector is going to love this vintage piece of American history. So onto eBay it goes! Check it out here.