Jeff Bigelow

I recall hearing about the rocket kiln that was built at Wheaton Labs on one of the podcasts but I haven’t seen any updates. This seems like a really cool piece of technology and was wondering if it’s been well-received in the wood-fired ceramics community?

Another food I’d like to share is Ful Medames (there are many spellings). It’s an Arabic dish of cooked fava beans with a variety of added ingredients depending on the version you are preparing (Egyptian, Lebanese, Yemeni, etc). I typically fry up a few cloves of garlic, toss in two cans of fava beans drained of their liquid, and add some water or stock until it looks just a little soupy. I cook it down for ten minutes and then stir in some tahini. Topped with some parsley and olive oil, it is pure heaven to spoon onto some warm pita bread. This is a common breakfast food in the Levant and Northern Africa. You will find many good recipes and variations online.

Admittedly, it’s not a very permaculture dish for me as it relies on the import of ingredients from the Arab world until I can produce fava beans myself, but it is healthy and high in fiber and protein. Canned beans are a shortcut but can be high in sodium. I aspire to switch over to pre-cooking batches of dried fava beans for the week to cut down on the sodium.

I find quinoa to be an excellent quick food. You can dress it up with spices or eat it with olive oil and salt (my favorite). It’s a decent protein source for being a grain and overall a fairly healthy food. Paired with some fermented veggies and maybe some sliced cheese, it’s a full meal.

I just watched this video about a low-cost method of performing Schlieren imaging . For those who haven't heard this term, it's a method used often in R&D to visualize flow-related phenomena that aren't visible to the naked eye. It's found commonly in combustion research as well, and my head went immediately to rocket mass heaters and how this low-cost technology could be applied to their improvement. I am thinking that it could be good as a baseline to do this kind of imaging on several poorly performing heaters/combustion units (obviously, Schlieren imaging would only be relevant to the combustion portion of a RMH... no relevance I can think of to the other parts) and then compare the flow with that of a good heater. I'm sure that are myriad ways to apply this method of flow visualization given that the linked method is so cheap to get imaging going.

Cristobal Cristo wrote:The moisture from the soil will affect the wood from the bottom, especially when it rains. Digging rodents will disperse the soil and throw it on your lumber.
I store everything outside.
Masonry and steel I just store on pallets.
Cements, insulating firebricks, adobe, lumber I store on double pallets or double pallets separated with plastic.

What do you mean by “separated by plastic”?

What do you all do for storing lumber outside? I’m currently building on an off-grid property and am early in the process of building my first outbuilding. I don’t have any permanent covered storage and have just been rigging a tarp across my lumber. I try to leave an air gap to let air run longitudinally and keep stuff dry. The lumber sits on some plywood which in turn sits on some scrap stickers. Does anyone have any better methods?

Not sure how “idiot-proof” this dressing is, but my “fancy” dressing when I want something with a bit more to it than just oil and vinegar is a Dijon dressing. I take a spoonful/forkful of Dijon mustard and put it into a small 4oz jar, then whisk it as best I can with a fork while drizzling in a little bit of good olive oil. Once it gets a bit airy and the volume has maybe roughly doubled, I mix in some apple cider vinegar/lemon juice and some maple syrup. Takes about 2 minutes start to finish and makes an excellent dressing.

Happy to share that this sauerkraut tastes excellent. I made a little bit of 5% salt brine and added it on top to fully submerge the batch after discarding the large cabbage leaf that was growing mold.

Thanks for the great advice. Is it typical to have the liquid level drop quite a bit after going into the refrigerator?

I made a batch of sauerkraut (pictured) over a period of a few weeks and it seemed to be going along really well. I never saw much bubbling but the liquid level definitely rose a little bit as it was fermenting as some brine got into my airlock a few times. I followed the recipe from Sandor Katz' Wild Fermentation but didn't measure my salt amount or the mass of the cabbage (have since remedied this with the purchase of a kitchen scale). However, I used the amount of salt meant for about a whole cabbage and only used a half, so I think that my salt level is definitely high enough to ward off most bad stuff. I threw in a few cloves of garlic and a handful of caraway seeds as well. During fermentation under my counter for about three weeks, the kraut was always submerged fully under the brine and I used a glass weight to maintain that state.

Before leaving for a 9-day trip last week, I put it into the fridge as it smelled pretty good by then and was ready to end the main fermentation. The liquid level was covering the kraut and most of the glass weight upon placing it into the fridge. However, checking it today, I noticed that the liquid level has dropped quite a bit, exposing the glass weight and about the top half inch of kraut. The big leaf I had covering the shredded cabbage has what appear to be white mold spots and there's some blue discoloration in the middle of the jar (although this area was covered by brine when I checked it).

Any thoughts on if I'm ok to just discard the molded leaf and remove the blue discoloration? Or do I need to restart? It currently smells absolutely wonderful for what it's worth. I'm just waiting to get some feedback before eating it in case there's something clearly wrong.