Sprouting Wheat for Flour

Many people with more eloquence and a lot better pictures have touched on this topic before. But here's my take on it. We started grinding our own flour, because grain stores longer than flour, plus it makes better bread.  Having done some research on sprouting it's generally accepted that sprouting the wheat berries makes it more digestible. It unlocks more nutrients and is assimilated better into our bodies.

First off I start with white wheat berries, I intend to try spelt, and emmer in the future. I don't measure exact amounts when sprouting I just roughly fill each 1/2 gallon mason jar to the 2 pints line. Then I fill each jar to rinse off the grain a few times. I use the handy green sprouting lid so I don't lose any grain when dumping out the water. I've also used cheesecloth and a rubber band, whatever works right? After the grain is rinsed, fill the jar with water and let it sit overnight 8+ hours. I usually go in the neighborhood of 12-15 hours soaking, it depends on when I fill the jar and when I remember to dump it out, it's a pretty forgiving process. The grain should've swelled to almost filling the jar, which is why I leave so much room at the top!



The next morning dump out the water and begin sprouting. It's exactly the same as all other sprouting at this point, rinse grain and keep it moist by rinsing twice a day am/pm. Until it sprouts tiny tails like above right.

Now comes the drying part. I layer the grain into 2 electric dehydrators using the fruit leather trays so the grain doesn't just fall through. Then I plug in and dry it all day. One of my dehydrators is faster so I just monitor it. You could also build one of these to avoid the electricity, which I do intend to build now... a pellet stove dehydrator. The grain should feel just as it did before sprouting, meaning it can't be crushed by a fingernail and it looks similar to this.

To grind it I use either my country living grain mill or my vitamix dry blender. I know the country living grain mill can grind it to the powdered flour consistency I'd need for bread, but it's really difficult. But grinding it to a "cornmeal" feel is rather easy (and a good arm work out). To get it the rest of the way I'll use the vitamix. But for this demo I use the blender the whole way because picture taking is just easier that way.

Before I grind I put the grain in the freezer, this keeps it from over heating during milling and having the oils go rancid. The risk is low for only grinding for a short time. In the blender it takes just over 1 minute to grind 2 cups of grain into flour. But I'd rather be safe than sorry.



Here's some links for more sprouting info. GNOWFGLINS and sprouted bread wiki style.

Now go make some bread! Any leftover flour I freeze, because flour with the bran inside it like this has will go bad much faster. Plus it's not "fortified" with anything to keep it's shelf life. So leftover flour --> freezer!

Awesomely Ugly Bookshelf

Garden used 2x4's split to make 2x2's and leftovers from our flooring project 2 years ago. Re-purposed bookshelf!

Fire Starters

I saw this online years ago, I and I thought it would be a good idea. Homemade fire starters. I really have no use of these in our fireplace because the kindling is dry and the draw for the fireplace is so good. But outside fire pit's, camping or other such uses for a slow burning fire I figured I'd make some up.

I keep candles that the wicks have burned out, or the bottom sludges of wax from a tee light for just this purpose. The wax doesn't have to be clean like it would for cosmetics or lotion. Dirty ugly wax works just fine.

Ingredients for homemade fire starters:

Leftover wax
Cardboard egg cartons
Dryer lint ( I haven't used my dryer in about 4 years so I had to acquire this from my Mom.... or Neighbor Kara)
Heat source to melt the wax, I used an old pan and bowl to make a double boiler

Divide the dryer lint into the egg compartments and then pour the melted wax over them. There is no perfect amount of wax, just cover the lint. I had a bit too much wax, and it soaked into the cardboard too. Which isn't a bad thing, it will burn slowly allowing you to start your fire if the situation isn't perfect for fire starting. Wind, rain and other general weather. I haven't used these yet but I intend to this summer!

Hunters Safety

Jake and I signed up for hunters safety yesterday. We're not sure if we intend to hunt but the class is free with a $10 refundable deposit, after you show up you get it back.  We don't even have any guns yet and the last time I actually fired a gun was in 8th grade gym class (I grew up in Montana ok...).  Hunters safety might turn into something or just be nothing, regardless it can't hurt.

Camp Freezer day

Chickens on Strike

Since about late September our chickens have been on strike. We fought with them all year about going broody. Once a month each chicken would take it's turn at broodiness. We kept breaking them of it, only to have the cycle repeat. It got old. So by late summer early fall we decided to hell with ya'll just go broody then! I think we collected our last egg sometime the last week of September.

Broodiness was then followed by molting. To which one of my girls is just now growing back feathers. I thought we might loose her for a while there because she was so naked. Everyone has pulled through with a new coat of feathers and no baby chicks (big wonder there as we don't have rooster.)

Yesterday we found this:

It seems as though one of are girls has decided to cross the picket line. We have a scab on our hands! I thought for sure we wouldn't see any eggs from these girls ever again. I intended to put a few of them up for sale as many people are looking for a hen that will go broody. But the rest were going to meet the stew pot by April if they didn't get there act together. Possibly we won't have to worry about that because it looks like we might start seeing some production around here!

I'd love to get some fertilized eggs and stuff them under one of our girls just to see what happens, but I've been unable to find
any locally.

I heard some chicken grumbling a while ago, so there might be two eggs to put in here. I always find it amazing how loud they are after such a long stretch of quiet. At least my girls are quiet when they go broody/molt. They sure complain about egg laying whenever they actually get around to it.

Fireplace Journey from Gas to Wood

Soap Making 2011

I did a soap making post a while back but I've never done an update on the recipe. So here we go.

Recipe:

In either ounces or grams, I use grams because I find it more precise and the math easier.

Water- 12 oz. or 366 g.
Lye NaOH- 5oz. or 143 g.
Coconut Oil- 12 oz. or 340 g.
Olive Oil- 12 oz. or 340 g.
Vegetable Oil (Crisco)- 10 oz. or 283 g. **

Combining temp: 120 degrees F
Time in mold: 48 hours

** I am aware of the destruction surrounding Palm oil which is the bulk of Crisco. I intend to change up this recipe and use mostly lard sourced from our local Farmer/Butcher. But I have to use up what I've purchased, thus the recipe above.

First thing I do is get my molds ready. I've used silicone cupcake molds, which work really well. But I just bought myself some no liner soap molds and I really want to try them out. 

I put all my fats into one big bowl and set it on the fire to melt and warm up. Takes a bit longer this way than heating it on the stove but this way's more fun. The olive oil I used in this recipe is infused with St. Johns Wort, which gives it that lovely red color and sweet smell. It should not effect the recipe other than imparting the awesomeness of SJW to the soap.


Now I get my lye and water ready. I read that lye will absorb water from the air so I don't get it out and pre-measured like I normally would. I do measure my water, using cold water from the tap and put it in the fridge to stay cool. After the lye is added to the water an intense chemical reaction takes place. The water went from 60*F to 180*F in a matter of seconds. Always ADD LYE to WATER. NEVER THE OTHER WAY AROUND! It can splash more and accidentally burn you.

Safety is really important! I use goggles and yellow rubber gloves. I didn't use to wear anything, because I'm young and invincible. But then I read a blog post from Deborah over at Antiquity Oaks about her adventures in the ER after getting the Lye/water mixture in her eye.  Needless to say I am convinced about safety and I now wear my oh so sexy goggles!

Ok back to soap... once the fats are nearly melted I'll go ahead and add the lye to water. The goal is to get both bowls (lye/water) and (fats) to the same temperature before combining them. As I said before, add lye to water. It will put off some serious vapors of which you don't want in your lungs. So I usually turn on the stove hood fan just before I put the lye in the water. I also cover my mouth with a towel just in case. Stir the lye/water until all the lye is dissolved. Then keep an eye on the temperature of both mixtures. The goal is 120*,  the lye/water will have to cool to 120 and the fats will have to warm up to 120. Once that happens pour lye/water mixture into fats bowl and mix. I use my little hand mixer which is super awesome for this task. I've also used a big kitchen mixer. Whatever works.

After about 2 minutes the soap will trace. Trace meaning to go from runny watery oil/water/lye to something more like pudding consistency. When the mixer moves the soap concoction should leave "trace" lines. Like running a spoon through pudding, you can see where the spoons been (does that make any sense?) Whatever.

So pour that gloppy soap thing into a mold. When I added the lye to fat it turned a horrid color of pea green. The really pretty red color imparted by the SJW turned green when the lye hit it. Which is fine because the soap should dry and cure out to be a softy green/yellow.

I added a small strip of parchment paper to my new mold. It isn't required but it should help me lift the soap out of the mold when it's done curing.

It has to be in the molds for 48 hours in order to have firmed up enough to handle. Also with these molds it forms an air lock so there is no getting it out before it's ready anyway.

This mold is a 3-4 pound size, molds come in many different sizes. This recipe fills one mold.

An Idea: the 52 week project

I came across a blog a few weeks ago where a gal took a picture per week and posted it. She called it her 52 week project. I think I'd like to do something similar. Lately I've been struggling with topics and I've been on a blogging hiatus. I read all my fellow bloggers though, faithfully. I just seem to have nothing to say. 
I wondered if this 52 week project would get me motivated again. Most people use the 52 wk. project to enhance their photography skills. I might use it to do a snapshot of what's going on around here. Not to say I wouldn't do regular posts too but this might keep me inspired.

We've made some changes around here, the blog for one and on the farm too, namely our new wood stove. I've done some sewing projects to make window quilts and have been learning to play the guitar too! I really used to hate winter but now I love it, whole weekends when planning happens instead of farming.

Onion Harvest

About half our onions tops started to flop over, a sure sign they are ready to come up. I knocked the rest over so the whole bed looked rather like one big onion blanket. I had turned the water off to each onion garden bed so they would be dry and the dirt would fall off easily, mud on onions is difficult. But then like mother nature is wont to do... it rained, totally unexpected and overnight.  Oh well, so we had to get the onions up now or the bottom ones covered by all the onion tops would rot. So away we went pitchforking and lifting the beauties out. I planted two full onion beds with the onions from Mr. H THANK YOU!!

Since the rain had ruined all my drying work, we had to set the beauties in the sun to cure for the day and get all the mud (which wasn't too much) off.

We lined them up along the garden fence, over the arbor, on the rim of 3 compost bins and 2 halved 55 gallon drums, plus one giant wheel barrow. About 1/4 to 1/2 will go into salsa making (provided we get any red tomatoes this year) and the rest of the onions will be for storage, or onion powder.  I even gave about 1/4 of the flat of onion starts  away to neighbor Kara and my Mom. Needless to say I HAVE ONIONS!!! YAHOO!!!

I waited a week or so to finish this post because I wanted to count how many onions we harvested, the total: 428 or roughly 140 lb. of onions. I braided about 1/4 of them and then trimmed the tops for the rest to be stored in burlap bags. It feels good to have put away that many. I have started making onion powder, I can only stand to do a little at a time because I cry so horribly when that many onions are cut up.

Life update

Well the new farm deal fell through, it's ok though since we are pretty content where we are now. When I could finally get the gal to tell me how much she wanted for her house/property, I about choked. Needless to say it was WAY TO HIGH, so we parted ways, I do wish her luck she is a very nice lady.

Since we are going to be here for at least another winter, I've decided to get a move on getting a generator connection. Right now we are totally grid tied and dependent. I would love a backup generator for some electricity, mostly just to run the freezers and possibly the furnace fan if we ever loose power for days on end. We have loads of "money" (read: meat/fruit/veggies) in freezer bags and were we to loose power saving that would be priority. All the dry and canned goods would be fine without electricity. Seeing hurricane Irene's devastation has made me even more jumpy in the prepping for emergencies department. Call me crazy but it makes me feel safer having 6-12 months of food for us and all our animals.

Jake and I would really love a wood stove, but that is going to be a much larger project that will take time. It may never happen at this house if we decide to move. So much of our desire for more land is garden and orchard space. However I am starting to think maybe along every fence I need to have an espaliered tree. Possibly redesign the front spiral and take advantage of space better. We'll see....

busy season

I've disappeared, I know... but I do have an excuse other than the summer cannery and garden mayham.

We might be moving.

About a month ago I was going to a garage sale, the property was awesome and the gal had a small sign on the side of the house that said (for sale by owner).  She gave me her card and told me to call back in a few weeks when she got the appraisal back. So in the mean time we've been getting our house ready for a possible sale. Our hope is to bridge loan, purchase that property, move all the livestock and sell this one.

I have had no time for blogging, between cleaning and staging this house on top of all the garden, canning, yard work, and livestock chores I've been swamped! But that is where we are.... once we know more and things slow down a bit I will post more regularly, or if I have exciting moving to our farm news!

Wild Food exploits

I love hunting for wild foods, I'm really new at it but I find it a ton of fun. Jake and I scouted out elderberry bushes and huckleberries this weekend. We didn't find any huckleberries, they are elusive and well guarded. As far as elderberries go, I was unsure if the shrub/tree down the block was one, but after our friends pointed them out when we were in Idaho I am convinced this and several across the street are elderberries.

This weekend we had a fair bit of thimbleberries and a few dewberries. Those are always good, but we can never harvest enough to put up. Maybe if we lived in an area they grew and could go harvest every few days, but they don't grow within 45 minutes of us, so it's a no go on the daily collecting.

The wild cherry tree across the field was torn down about 4 days before the berries were ripe enough to pick. Thank you construction project. Neighbor Kara and I were really sad, we cleaned that tree out last year.

I was able to get Saint Johns Wort while still in flower, I didn't get enough to dry for tea but I made a half gallon of SJW infused oil and a quart of SJW tincture. I did miss the nettles this year, but I am determined to get some next year!

I still need to find a mycophile. I've never tried exotic mushrooms (even store bought ones) so I'm not sure what ones I might like. My mushroom knowledge extends from white, crimini, to portobello, I'm real versed (insert sarcasm here.)

Garden pictures to come soon, I need to go outside with the camera.