Dave de Basque

Jack Edmondson wrote:
Here is some information on using a simple bunyip.  These home made devices can find level from one room to another around corners and up and down stairs, as water seeks its own level.  One just has to take a minute or two to calibrate them.

Thanks, Jack, for your post and for digging up this video. It's "Bunyip," not "Bunyan" as I said from my scratchy memory above. And marking it in the way shown in your video is great and makes your Bunyip level useful in multiple projects over time.

I think contour maps and staking things out on the ground serve different purposes and it's best to let each do its work independently.

Contour maps are good for laying things out, making a design (at your desk) of a property you may not know very well, or understanding more clearly what's going on at and around a property you are familiar with. And you can pencil out some ideas that later inform how you look at the property when you visit. Being super-precise is not usually what you're after, though I absolutely love 0.25m contour lines, I find it gives me an almost spiritual connection with the land.

Of course, garbage in, garbage out, you need really good survey/LIDAR data to generate 1-foot contours. You don't say where in Spain you are, but you may have really good aerial survey data done by your Autonomous Community. Here in the Basque Country we have 1-meter-resolution LIDAR surveys of the whole country, every inch. That's great to work with and you can generate fairly accurate 0.25m contour lines from that. Or very accurate 1m contours. I don't know if you use map-making software at all, QGIS for instance is free but the learning curve can be steep.

Google Maps and Google Earth generally suck for planning anything at the level of an individual property. Sometimes you get contour lines running perpindicular to actual contour in spots if you zoom in at a particular place. I would look for LIDAR data or do a drone survey.

Staking things out on the ground I would only do in the spots where I intend to build something dead level -- a swale, a house pad, a body of water, a section of path or road... I would not waste time trying to get any of this to line up with a line on the map unless there was a good reason to. The map is much less accurate than what you do on the ground.

A nice low-tech tool for running out contours on the ground is the water level, I think the Australians call it a Bunyan level. You need a couple of identical 1.5- or 2-m sticks, a few meters of transparent tubing, water or tea, some zip ties, a ruler, a permanent marker, and a companion. Run each end of the tubing along a stick and zip tie it in place firmly but without blocking off flow inside the tube, don't put a zip tie right at the bottom. You want a length of tubing between the sticks that corresponds to how you are going to flag out the contour line - 1m, 2m, 3m, 5m..., your choice depending on the complexity of the terrain and your needs. Stand the sticks-with-tube up next to each other on a level surface. Fill the tube with water (or tea for visibility) up to about eye level on the sticks. Mark the water level (which will of course be identical) with the marker on each end of the tube. So now you can run out a contour line on the land. Set a stick on the ground and put a flag (thin metal stick with a colo(u)red flag on the end) in right there. Your companion goes out with the other stick (without spilling any water of course), and finds the place where the water goes exactly up to the marked line when she sets the stick on the ground like you. That is level. She puts a flag in the ground to mark the spot, and then you take your stick ahead of her to mark the next spot. And so on until you're done.

The water level also works to stake out something you're going to build with a certain fall, say a drainage ditch that you want to lose -1.5m evelation over 100m run. So every 2 meters it will lose 3 cm. In that case you make three marks on each side of the tube, one where the water is level, and the other two 1.5 cm higher and lower than that on the tube (so exactly 3 cm between the top and bottom marks). So you set the first stick and flag it, companion moves with the other stick out 2m and slightly down to the place where the water reaches the top mark. And for the first person the water level will have descended to the bottom mark. That's the 3cm-difference you want. Flag and then repeat as in the other example.

I love stuff like that, but of course you can be "modern" and get a laser level or a transit level or whatever you want, ha, ha...

Does any of this help?

If you've built raised beds and put soil in there that's been moved, and even mixed in some peat, then the soil should be loose enough for a carrot to get through. Carrots don't like root disturbance, so avoid working right near the roots. Don't fertilize your carrots, that makes them grow more greens than carrot. If the tops aren't growing for a bit but the roots are (the carrots) that could actually be a great success, you might be doing just fine. I gauge root diameter occasionally by sticking a pinkie in the soil on either side and seeing how thick it is. If that's moving forward, you're doing great. Also don't forget to thin them out, make sure there's only one carrot root growing at each location.

UPDATE: I made my kefir and my yogurt in the dehydrator set to a bit above body temperature, 10 hours. I used the lid on both jars but I kept the kefir jar lid very loose to permit off-gassing. The starters were in each case, about 1/6 of and old Lambert's probiotic capsule plus: a big heaping tablespoon of the last batch of yogurt, in the case of the yogurt, and a big heaping tablespoon of store-bought semi-hippy plain kefir in the case of the kefir. And the UHT cow's milk close to its expiration date.

RESULT: The kefir was perfect for what I wanted, solid like yogurt. The actual yogurt was actually a bit more liquidy at the top until I refrigerated it, and later the top 1cm or so was kind of curds-and-whey-y -- this has happened on previous batches, and it seems like a minor flaw, it's fine. In both cases creamy and absolutely delicious.

ANALYSIS: I may have just made yogurt out of the kefir culture, who knows. That tiny bit of a very old probiotic capsule may have been so peppy that it took over and outcompeted the kefir cultures present in the store-bought kefir. Or maybe, as S Bengi wrote above, my store-bought kefir was over-pasteurized and didn't have very strong, live cultures. (On the label, ingredients are pasteurized milk + fermenting cultures, leading me to think the cultures themselves weren't ever pasteurized though, so maybe this is not the explanation.) Or maybe I just discovered the perfect recipe, at least for me, because the result (at least in flavor and texture, microorganisms present are more of a mystery) was exactly what I was looking for -- solid yet creamy, and not too sour.

PROBIOTIC CAPSULE: I'm attributing my good results (better than what I read about on blogs) to the only thing I'm doing differently, adding a tiny bit of the powder from inside these old capsules I keep in the fridge. Just for science, I'll say what species it says it provides: Bifidobacterium bifidus, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Streptococcus thermophilus, Lactobacillus delbrueckii. Seems to solidify and makes creamier than I expected in every case.

CONCLUSION: I'm pleased as punch with the results and will do this again. I have two brands of goat's milk kefir I may try as a starter in the future, one of them definitely has active cultures because the lids start to bulge out and gas escapes when I open them. Too bad I can't locate fresh goat's milk at the moment. Season for fresh sheep's milk has just ended, so will try that next year. I may try proper kefir grains if I can find them in Europe. If I find raw cow's milk in the end, I will try with that too. Maybe I will remember to report back here, I hope so!

Cristobal Cristo wrote:With pasteurized milk yogurt or kefir I use the previous batch no more than 2 times, because some unwanted bacteria gets to the culture. Sour milk has this advantage that you just need one ingredient, no heat and nothing good gets destroyed by cooking. The good bacteria will quickly suppress any bad one - like in pickles or sauerkraut.

Hi Cristobal, I don't have any experience with sour milk at all. Could you tell me about the flavor and texture compared to yogurt and kefir? And how the beneficial microorganisms compare? (if you know). Why do you like having sour milk instead of other things?

Abraham Palma wrote:Hello, Dave.

I can talk about my kefir culture. I've tried several things. Since I don't want the kefir fatigue syndrome (that's when your body tells you have drink too much kefir this month!), I tried to make it always in the fridge. However, the taste wasn't great.

Apparently, the microbes need room temperatures for doing their work properly. We can preserve it in the fridge, and if the fridge is not too cold, it will continue the fermentation process, just not the best lactic process you would expect, but the one that leads to cheese smells.
Whenever I've ruined a batch by letting it sit in the counter for too long, I've made labneh instead. That's the same as making cream cheese, but using kefir. The cream cheese is good for toasts, and it can be used in cheese cake recipes. You can let it mature if you like strong flavours.

But for now, I'm doing this:
- Leave the jar with the grains and fresh milk in the counter. I check it at every meal. If it is still liquid, I let it be. If it has solidified, I whiskle it with a spoon and taste it. Normally, the first time the flavour is still bland, if you like it this way, skip to the next step. The second time it solidifies, the taste is good, acidic like a real yoghurt without any animal smells. The speed of the process depends very much on the room temperature. These days it's ready in about 24 hours.
- Once the kéfir is good for drinking, I add some sugar, and with the help of a colander, I pour the creamy kéfir in cups. The cups have a lid. I store them in the fridge, they are good to drink for at least a couple of days.
- While the grains are still in the colander, I clean the bottle only with water, and also the grains. This prevents any cheese ferment to be passed to the next batch, though it is not required.
- I put the grains again in the jar and fill it with whole milk. The jar can be stored up to 5 days in the fridge. Once we have eaten the kéfir in the cups, I take the bottle to the counter to let it develop its flavour.


It looks like too much work, but it isn't. Checking the kéfir is just a few seconds. Pouring the kefir into cups and readying a new jar is just 6 minutes.
My family is enjoying the homemade kefir, and they are actually asking when we can have the next one! Twice a week seems to be golden for us.

Oh, and I believe that the culture we keep at home has evolved to fit our tastes too. After a few years it has changed its flavour to something we like more. Could it be using microbes from our bodies?

Hi Abraham. Nice to hear from you since you're in Spain. Where do you get kefir grains? Thanks for all this information on your process!

S Bengi wrote:If your store bought kefir has active cultures that haven't been killed due to pasteurization then what you are making in the kefir jar will be as good as the store bought one. So keep on doing what you are doing. It's possible that your store bought kefir only has 6 different species of microbes vs the official 36+ that kefir grains have. But that's okay its still a step in the right direction. Just keep on doing what you are doing.

Great! Thanks for the advice. Any suggestions for making it less tangy and on the thicker side? I guess less tangy comes from less time fermenting, but what controls how thick or thin it is? I'm really looking for yogurt with more beneficial microorganisms, I want something to spoon rather than to drink.

Cristobal Cristo wrote:Hi Dave,

Too bad it is not a normal milk - raw. You would leave it in the room temperature and make sour milk - my favorite.
If it was already cooked, I would turn into yogurt.

I am working on getting a "secret" local source of raw milk. If I do, do you think I can make kefir from a previous batch of kefir, without ever purchasing kefir grains? (Not that I have anything against them and they won't break the bank, it just seems unnecessary, and they're hard to track down around here.) Also, do you use your sour milk to make kefir? Or do you consider it your version of kefir?

A friend of mine here is a big fan of a fairly local dairy for their sustainability practices among many other things. He spoke so glowingly that I went and bought a case (6 liters) of UHT cow's milk. Even though we very rarely use cow's milk products. And there it sat, because we couldn't think of anything to do with it. The "best by" date was coming up.

Meanwhile, we have been spending a lot of money on hippie goat's and sheep's milk yogurt and kefir and I am looking to economize. And another friend makes her own yogurt at home (from cow's milk, in a yogurt maker) and occasionally gives me some, and it's pretty darn good. So I thought I've gotta figure something out here, and no way am I buying another consumer appliance to make yogurt. But we do have an electric dehydrator and I thought I'd give that a whirl. I had some ooooold probiotic capsules in the fridge which I keep for tummy emergencies, and I opened up a capsule and mixed in a tiny amount, as well as a big spoonful of plain store-bought yogurt as the starter. And presto, it worked great, even with UHT milk, which a few bloggers told me it shouldn't.

So I thought I would try my hand at kefir and see if that works too. I followed the same procedure as above, substituting store-bought plain kefir for yogurt, also with a little shot of probiotics. I've got one jar of kefir and one of yogurt both sitting in the dehydrator at body temperature for 10 hours.

Any idea what's going to come out? It seems like I'm violating all the modern consumer kefir rules by not buying any special kefir grains or anything. And I don't really know if this time and temperature are right either. Just looking for advice from any old kefir hands out there as I've never made it before.

Wow, Anne, thank you! Just watching the first of the above videos, I got intrigued with what they're doing and hopped onto their YouTube channel. They followed up this short with a long report, bokashi section starts at 3:47:



The long and short of it is that pretty much exactly what Angelika was originally proposing above worked really well for them! I'm excited and am already thinking about our version of this project! Thanks everyone!!