Ryan M Miller

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since Jan 08, 2019
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Biography
As of Spring 2019, I have graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Classical Languages at Franciscan university of Steubenville. Currently, I am trying to figure out how to pay off my student loans.
For much of my spare time during the growing season, I tend a vegetable garden in my suburban backyard. During the rest of the year I spin and knit whatever fiber I can find to make articles of clothing. Until I can own my own land, I have to live with an inedible grass lawn that has to be mowed and fertilized regularly.
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Recent posts by Ryan M Miller

When the common milkweed plant spreads clonally from a single rhizome, the shoots tend to space themselves out anywhere between eight inches and one foot from each other. I'd suggest one foot may work well and then you can thin out the rhizomes as the plant colony gets denser.
3 days ago
I forgot to update this thread on my progress in processing the milkweed bast fiber. Considering how heavy these coarse hanks are, I suspect I might have more than six ounces of milkweed fiber after passing it through a hackle. I attempted to use a flax brake on the milkweed stems to separate the hurds from the fiber beforehand, but the fibers were so brittle that trying to use the flax brake would only destroy the fibers and break them into shorter fibers. I supplemented the swamp milkweed stems with some common milkweed and dogbane stems that I collected. I'm hoping to update again when I can find a suitable set of hackles to further process the fibers.
6 days ago
I haven't been able to do much gardening for the past two years, but one of my neighbors is currently growing swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) so I collected some plant stems from him while he was cleaning out his wildflower garden this week. I will be buying an antique flax brake in a few weeks to help process the fibers since splitting the stems by hand would take too long.
2 months ago
I want to resurrect this thread again because I've been learning about other plants besides river cane that have straight shafts suitable for making knitting needles. Wherever river cane wasn't available, certain species of dogwood (Cornus sp.), Viburnum, and willow (Salix sp.) were used to make arrow shafts. I just recently found out about this as of yesterday. Here's a video of Willie Pekah from the Comanche of Oklahoma making traditional arrows with dogwood branches. I expect the same dogwood species he's using would also be suitable for making knitting needles.  
3 months ago
Between November of last year and February of this year, I have been attempting again to grind honey locust pods into flour. This time I used a grain mill instead of a food processor so the resulting powder has a much finer texture. It's worth noting that there still seems to be some fibrous material left behind when I used my grain mill, so I still had to sift out the resulting powder to remove the fibrous material from the resulting powder. I've posted the rest of my images to another thread on making carob and honey locust bars.
1 year ago
I've also forgotten to share some updated images of the honey locust pods that I intend to use for the candy bars. I no longer have the honey locust pods from 2020, but I was still able to find a reasonably large quantity of honey locust pods from a tree while I was living in Cincinnati. This time, instead of grinding the pods without processing them, I removed the seeds, soaked them in hot water overnight, and then drained out the excess water the following morning. Once I strained the pods, I placed them on a baking sheet and roasted them in an oven at 170°F for about twelve hours or until the pods were dry and brittle to the touch.

Since I now have a grain mill, I cut the pods into small one inch pieces and fed them through the grain mill several times. This process took longer than I expected since honey locust pods have a fibrous texture. Even after multiple passes through the grain mill, I was unable to get a powder finer in texture than sawdust. In order to get around this, I sifted the resulting coarse meal twice: once through a 40 mesh baking sieve and again through a 100 mesh baking sieve. The resulting power after sifting was reasonably close in texture to cocoa powder but is probably closer to fine-grained sand. The second author's video that I most recently posted suggests a particle size of about 30 micrometers for the solids in a candy bar; but I suspect that even with a 100 mesh sieve, I won't be able to get a particle size finer than 254 micrometers.

Here are my most recent images of my attempts at processing the honey locust pods into a fine powder.
1 year ago
A quick update: Another author has a YouTube video where he claims to have made a reasonable bar of chocolate using undutched cocoa powder and powdered sugar. His resulting bar looks reasonable from the 720p quality on the video, but he says that the resulting bars have a slightly coarse texture. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6inTwwloRBU

For my carob and honey locust bars, I intend to test different batches each with sorghum syrup, powdered sugar, and local raw honey. Hopefully the resulting bars have enough good flavor to make up for their slightly coarse texture.
1 year ago
I found the YouTube channel for the author of the article I posted above and he has a video explaining the problems encountered when trying to make a candy bar out of cocoa powder or carob powder without a melanger. For those who don't know, a melanger is a specialized food mill that grinds and blends the ingredients used to make chocolate or carob bars over a period of at least 24 hours.

In one YouTube video, this same author shows an example of some chocolate he attempts to make out of cocoa powder without a melanger and he shows the resulting coarse texture of the bar. I've decided to include the link to this video to my post. Chances are, my attempts at making a candy bar out of honey locust powder will also have a similarly coarse texture as well. I have gone ahead and bought silicone molds, but hopefully the flavor of the candy bars doesn't suffer along with the texture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfsOiUFMG4k
1 year ago
I just now found a website by a food gastronomist where the author claims that carob bars do not need to be tempered in the same way as chocolate. Hopefully this applies to honey locust powder and mesquite flour as well:
https://chocolatealchemy.com/blog/2012/12/13/ask-the-alchemist-16?format=amp
1 year ago
Just now, I've found a recipe and procedure for making carob bars. https://www.food.com/amp/recipe/easy-homemade-carob-chocolate-sugar-dairy-free-455671 The recipe doesn't seem to give any hints on whether or not coconut oil or beef tallow can be crystallized and tempered in the same manner as cocoa butter. For anyone curious, tempering is a process of thermal cycling cocoa butter from 113-131°F down to 81°F and back up to 82-86°F in order to make the chocolate harden better once the chocolates have solidified and prevent the fat from separating from the cocoa solids in emulsion. One tempering process video looks pretty complicated and requires a heat gun:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bibJS2P58wM&pp=ygUWdGVtcGVyaW5nIGNvY29hIGJ1dHRlcg%3D%3D

Due to the risk of hyperlink rot, I intend to post an archived link for the first recipe. I'm hoping I can adapt the recipe with beef tallow.
1 year ago