We spent a while tossing back and forth design ideas, and she had a pretty clear vision of what she wanted. Something farmhouse, but legs and structure that wasn’t too rustic… A few examples that really impressed her were here. In particular, she liked the way that the ‘leaves’ (or extensions) were made for these tables. That played to the need for a smaller apartment sized table, with the ability to add spaces when needed & when a larger dining room was available.

I got to work in google sketchup and came up with these preliminary sketches:

The red portion indicates the removable leaf system.

Kathy also had already ordered the legs that she really liked, from Osborne Wood Products. She drop shipped them straight to my house, in fact!

So, on with the show!

I started by laminating a series of 8 1×2′s to form 4 square arms for the extensions.

Then I put the table top together – a series of 1×8 pine boards, joined with pocket screws (Most of this project is joined using pocket screws, which allowed the quick build.)

The process was also very speedy with everything pre cut…

I also added an extension to my poor work bench making the cutting table of my chop saw level with the existing work bench… it made things SO much easier, especially when I could just screw down stop blocks for repeat cuts.

Once I had the apron, and joists in place, it was time to focus on the legs – which I so desperately didn’t want to screw up! I sanded one corner down just enough to get a bevel to screw into, and then screwed a hangar bolt (lag screw thread on one side, machine thread on the other) into the leg (hint: if you put 2 nuts screwed against each other, you can actually drive the screw in).

Once the bolt was installed, I could put it into the corner brace and tighten it up with a nut and lock washer.

Once all the legs were installed, the core of the table was finished!

Then I threw together the extensions, and viola! (note: the only tools actively used in the building of this table were the square and pencil)

All together, I’m happy with the build… definitely needs a good sanding, and finished, but I think I’ll leave that to Kathy’s capable hands

Stack o' jars

After a few weeks of ‘yes we can can’ attitude and know-how, we’ve come up with quite the haul:

• Lots of pickles (Lots)
• Peaches: Slices in syrup & jam
• Strawberry jam
• Pickled carrots
• Pickled okra
• A few jars of potatoes
• Chicken stock

I’m basically just documenting my network tap build:

I started off building the tap in this instructable: http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-Passive-Network-Tap
For my purposes, this tap is just wrong… it basically just splices a couple network connections together (and interrupts network traffic when anything is plugged into the tap port). Perhaps linux or some other scenario can function with it, but I don’t carry around a linux laptop for the fun of it. (And I don’t know many windows sysadmins that do.)

There’s a great article here that details a proper four-port tap.

Short of going and purchasing a 4-port faceplate, I pulled all the connections on my middle tap port except the rx pair (pins 3 & 6) and it worked properly. To get both a tx and rx port in the same form factor as in the instructable, I decided I’d add a tail to the box. That also takes away the need for an additional patch cable. Here’s a picture of it hooked up:

Passive Tap Connected

(in pic above: pc is plugged into top port, tail then connects to router (wireless bridge) – laptop is connected to bottom tap port)

And here’s a picture of the inside of the tap:

Passive Tap Internal

Basically, blue and brown go straight to the top port from the tail, and orange and green stop along the way across pins 3 & 6 of either tap port. There’s also a zip-tie there so the tail can’t be pulled so hard that it un-punches anything.

Combine this set up with wireshark, and you can tap traffic whenever you need. To tap both rx & tx traffic, you’ll need two ethernet ports. Monitoring one at a time is good enough for me.

Strawberries - $1/lb @ Super H Mart

We figured we’d snag a few and make some jelly (the picture is only about half of what we bought, and we SHOULD have bought a bunch more). Sister Anne suggested that we should try a lower sugar recipe than the classic Ball recipe. I dare say that even the recipe that we used seemed high on Sugar. Well, we’ll find out about that once we open the first one. The fun here was in the making!

Andy prepping Strawberries

We diced the Strawberries into small pieces…

Strawberries pre-boil

For a total of 6 quarts pre-boil volume. Combined that with sugar, and brought to a boil…

Strawberry Jam Boiling

Be careful when making jelly, this stuff likes to foam! I’m glad I did it in my water bath canner! (We used this pot to make it in, and used the pressure canner as a water bath canner.)

*A few words of advice at this point: Use a food processor on your strawberries first, we found that ours didn’t cook down and break up as much as we expected (a la tomatoes) (I think this also effected our measurement of the pre-boil volume of strawberries – we got lower yield than expected. | Because we took some out and blended it, we were goofing around with the heat to maintain a boil: keep it low. we scorched a small spot on the pot. Nothing to adversely effect the batch, but just putting it out there…

This was the first time I had bothered to boil my lids, so when it came time to extract them from the sauce pot they were in, I couldn’t find the lid lifter that I may or may not have purchased three years ago when I thought I was going to can something.

If you find yourself in this pickle, I’m pretty sure you’ll have a glue gun, refrigerator magnet, and wooden spoon on hand:

Makeshift Lid-lifter

Just be careful not to have it in hot water for too long – it is on there with hot glue after all! – it worked fine until I had to start going for the lids near the bottom. It would probably last an entire canning session if you ran it under cold water once or twice. You could of course, do this with another food safe glue and keep the magnet on the end of one of your spoons. (Who needs another unitasker in the kitchen anyways, right?)

And the final result:

Canned Strawberry Jam

8.5 pints of strawberry jam! We calculated that we probably managed this for around $2 a pint (plus jar costs). Keep in mind, Smuckers goes for $3.50+ at Kroger, so we’re pretty proud of ourselves.

We’ll have to test a jar out before we make gifts of it to friends and family… But I fully expect to be able to trade a jar or two for some Marinara, or other great staple.

So, logically one of the things I look for at these type stores is home canning jars. No go at this Good Will though.. I keep perusing and come across an old pressure cooker, a ‘National No.7′ according to the label riveted to it. I quickly did some research on my phone, but that didn’t set me completely at ease. I then dialed up my sister who was near a computer and did even more research and listed some prices of the parts I could visibly identify in need of replacement.

So, I shelled out the 15 bucks they were asking and brought it home. Once cleaned up, it’s a pretty respectable unit (I literally separated it down to every part… handles off, etc):

Inside of the pressure canner

Pressure canner

So, now I just need to make it to the county extension office to get the gauge checked… I’m going to wait to order the weights until I do this, as I’ll need to add a new gauge to the order if it fails too drastically.

Once everything’s a go go, I’ll be able to can a full batch of stock or anything else that requires pressure canning. So happy to not have to pay full price for this guy!

Name suggestions?

The only problem is keeping it and making it keep. Previously I’ve tossed the whole lot into a tupperware container and put it in the fridge… a few weeks tops like that. More if you’re brave.

Today I figured I’d ask for some help from siblings and embark up on a long off-put journey down ‘canning lane’. I’ve made pickles in jars before, but they don’t count… they turned out awful. Besides, you can make pickles with a cold process anyways. Tonight I wanted to make something shelf stable.

So, after a consult with a sibling, I decided that my Fagor Pressure Cooker would suffice as a pressure canner for my needs (if anything, it’s going to go above and beyond the required temps/pressures for canning broth – which won’t effect it the same way nuking green beans would..)

Canning Process Underway

Above you can see the pot of broth on the back left (This was the pot strained into… the stock pot was larger). Front right is the Fagor pressure cooker… which fits 4 pint jars.

And then there is the end result:

Canned Broth

You can see that some jars boiled over… a lot. I have one that is literally half empty. Another consult with another sibling indicated that the cause of this was headspace. I was under the impression that it was some arbitrary ‘leave an inch’… but apparently it’s much more important than that. Lesson learned.

Overall, I’m terribly happy that I’ve preserved something and made it shelf stable. Not to mention split up this batch into usable amounts. Wonder what I’ll put in jars next weekend…

BTW: This article was of very good reference on the subject: http://www.simplycanning.com/homemade-chicken-broth.html

So I’ve never posted about making beef jerky, but I have made it several times with Alton Brown’s Method using a box fan and air filters. Unfortunately, air filters can get quite expensive, so I began to consider other methods to achieve the same thing. Also, with our garden coming to fruit, there are several things that we’ll be wanting to dry. (herbs, etc.)

I decided that wooden frames stretched with a screen of some sort would work quite well. Then there was the stackability factor, etc…

So I came up with these frames:

Which have a beveled top and bottom:

And were then covered on the bottom with fiberglass screen door material:

Then I built this frame to hold the fan and stabilize the first tray on top of it:

(It comes apart for easy storage):

Assembled, it’s fairly impressive:

I had not put any screen on the 4th frame, and I’m kind of glad I didn’t, as it will keep whatever’s drying off the fan box by about 3 inches. I will also probably make a ‘lid’ out of 1×1′s and stretch mesh over. Axel might be inclined to see what’s going on inside, and we can’t have that!

Right now, I’ve got 1.5 lbs of flank steak in marinade waiting to become beef jerky…. Can’t wait to try this thing out!

Once we got into the new house, I wanted to get it put together fairly quickly. My parts list (up to now… some mods to come) is as follows:

• A few bits of 2×4 to support the whole unit
• 17″ Terra Cotta Flower Pot – Home Depot
• 17″ Azalea Pot – Pike’s Nursery
• 1 brick, broken in half – Home Depot
• 1 small electrical resistance heating coil – Ace Hardware
• Lamp cord – Ace Hardware
• Weber replacement charcoal grate – Home Depot
• Thermometer – Ace Hardware
• Tin pie pan – Kroger
• Wood chips – Kroger
• Outdoor single gang enclosure
• 1 solid 1 gang metal cover plate
• 1/2″ Halex Twin Screw Clamp Connector – Home Depot
• Universal Infinite switch & knob – Fox Appliance Parts of Atlanta
• 3 ft of 1/8″ metal rod – Home Depot

Assembly is pretty simple and straightforward with the only technical part being the connection of the infinite switch (L is for incoming power, H goes to the element, and P would be for an indicator light, ignore it unless you’re getting creative.)

Here’s some pictures:

The Smoker - controller to right, wood chips to left

Temperature Guage and grate hooks

I found that wrestling a boston butt out of the depth of the smoker was quite difficult, so I bought a length of metal rod (coat hangers would work, we just don’t own any metal ones) & bent it to the shape you see here – two ‘handles’ to lift the grate out with.

Heating Element

A lot of people buy a modular hot plate and take it apart for the heating element – I for one couldn’t even find this style of single burner hot plate anywhere – they were all the new flat, single round plate sytle. I also just thought it would be easier to just buy what I needed – Ace sells replacement heating coils.

I crimped the end of the lamp cord to the end of the element – I need to replace this cable with heat tolerant cable – the insulation has shrunk back dramatically, and after a few more uses I think the insulation will have been compromised enough to cause a short. I’ll just replace it back to the control unit.

Also, a few pieces of 2×4 hold the lower pot off the ground, allowing the cord to run out from under the unit.

Control Knob

This is exactly what is on your kitchen stove, just inside an outdoor electrical enclosure – it’s called an infinite switch, and I got one at a local appliance parts store. The guy at the counter was a total dick and didn’t want to help me because I didn’t have a part number – the unit I got was a ‘universal’ that ran me about $25. I jimmied it into the enclosure by mounting it on a solid faceplate. (One more reason you need a step bit.)

Pie tin of chips

The combustibles I’ve been using are water-soaked Mesquite chips. Kroger sells them as grill additives, but they’re the only thing I’m using here. I’m ready for a new wood type though – Mesquite is a VERY distinct flavor when it comes to smoking. I’m looking forward to smoking with apple wood. (also, I’m curious what the difference between small chips and large chips is like on a long smoking session.)

Smoker Gasket

One page I was reading detailed how a guy had used a replacement gasket from a Big Green Egg (got mine at an Ace – the gasket, not the egg) to seal the two pots better. I did the same here, and it works like a charm – it’s adheared to the lower pot, so I can just lift off the upper pot and set it on the ground without it getting dirty.

Boston Butt 2

Boston Butt 1

First up to bat was Alton’s Boston Butt recipe. It turned out really well, but you have to be expecting smoked pork here. I initially benchmarked it against a crock pot slow cooked Boston Butt, but that’s just not fair – it’s excellent on a whole different scale. It pulled with little effort, and we’ve made everything from pulled pork sandwiches to pulled pork omelets (yeah).

Salmon in salt

Next up was Salmon, but first it spent about 14 hours in a salt/sugar pack; again, Alton’s recipe here, which gets mixed reviews – I believe this to be the case because people end up using table salt where he calls for kosher salt. Yes, it’s all salt, but a cup of kosher salt isn’t as much as a cup of table salt (imagine a barrel of bowling balls [kosher] vs a barrel of sand [table]).

Smoked Salmon

The salmon turned out really well, and did not take long to smoke at all. I probably could have had the temperature control down even more than I did – once the smoker preheats, it takes very little to keep it at temperature.

Flaked Smoked Salmon

I was immediately inspired to flake a good bit of the salmon (one fillet), and make a ‘salmon salad sandwich’ – fantastic.

Overall, I am very pleased with the smoker. I have a turkey brining right now to test out tomorrow on it – a trial run before thanksgiving, where I plan to serve one smoked and one fried turkey.

Other things that I would note would be:

• The temperature gauge in the top dome tends to be inaccurate – temperatures more towards the middle/bottom are in actuality higher – I plan on mounting a digital thermo at this level.
• The lamp cord I used is insufficient, and I should have known better. I will likely replace the run into the smoker with heat resistant cable, and the run between the plug and infinite switch with a heavier gauge cable.
• There are a few hacks around the internet of temperature controllers/notifiers (including one guy that gets a text message when his internal meat temperature hits a preset) for me, the important part was just that I have simple, functional control instead of just on and off… it works.

Anyone have any other suggestions as to what to smoke?

This works pretty good, until you take in the absolutely horrible job that windows does of maintaining offline files & connectivity to the central network resource. In addition, the solution I had did nothing for backup. (Any files you don’t have backed up, you don’t care about.)

Recently I’ve changed my tune on making files available on more than one computer, and I’m going with Dropbox. (For people wanting to just utilize online cloud backup with one computer, Mozy & Carbonite offer unlimited volume for reasonable prices.)

The setup is pretty simple (this is on XP – I’ll try some things with Win 7 soon)..

• when installing dropbox on the computer, put your dropbox on the root of the drive (c:\) – dropbox automatically creates the ‘dropbox’ folder during the install, so just select the hard drive, and don’t create a folder unless you want to get ‘C:\dropbox\dropbox\’
• Once set up, create a ‘\my documents\’ folder in the dropbox folder
• go to your ‘my documents’ icon, right click, and hit ‘properties’ and change the ‘target’ to ‘C:\My Dropbox\My Documents’
• Once you click OK, it will ask if you want to move the contents of your my documents folder… just click yes and it will copy it over, at which point, the dropbox app will start automatically uploading the files to the dropbox cloud.

You can do this on whatever computers you want the get to the same ‘my documents’ folder on. (e.g. – if you had a desktop in the office and a laptop elsewhere – it’s nice to have files synchronized.) The sync option works very well with dropbox, and I actually haven’t seen a conflict come up, so I’m not entirely sure how conflict resolution works (this could be the lynch pin in this whole thing, so just be aware of that – especially with things like iTunes.)

Dropbox offers 2GB free, but that won’t be enough for most people, but their 50GB plan is pretty reasonable.

The thing about Dropbox over other cloud backup options is that I can get to my files from any computer by logging into the web interface. They even have an iPhone app (of course).

Oh, and on a similar note: For those people who think an external hard drive is effective backup or that you don’t need backup… I was wrong and you are wrong.

Give Dropbox a shot… hell, it’s free to try and waste 2GB of someone else’s space with your digital hoarding