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Preserving your food?
Check. We: freeze, salt/corn, dry [either by jerking, smoking, or pemmican], pickle, canning [None of these methods require electricity], and freeze-dry.
Making lye?
We have been making our lye for 3 years now.
Making soap?
My Dw does already. She sells it.
Hunting?
I can. I have. But I have not hunted recently. Most years one moose, one bear, and a couple deer are harvested from my land. We also have a lot of turkey. Some years a trapper friend gets a few beaver on my land also. I have not been hunting, simply because we produce poultry and pork, our freezer is pretty full. We are butchering three pigs this weekend.
Cooking from scratch? Cooking without being able to buy items like baking soda/powder and other inexpensive everyday items?
My Dw makes her own 'mixes' for things. But we do grind grain to make flour. Actually she has been developing recipes, using dry-beans ground to flour. It turns bread from being a carb to a protein. She does a presentation every year at our homesteading fair, making bean-flour pizza, breads, cookies, chocolate cake, etc.
Making yeast without starter?
I do that, yes.
Is your current house adaptable to going without electricity, gas, municipal water, and sewer?
We do not have municipal gas, water, or sewer.
We are connected to Municipal electricity, and we are in the process of installing a solar-array to make us off-grid.
Can you make your own clothing?
My Dw sews.
Are you good at recycling/reusing?
Sort of, I guess. Most stuff is either fed to our pigs/chickens or else it is burned.
Alternative medicine when no health care provider is available?
Yes, I grow a selection of herbs. I provide various herbs at market. I am fairly accomplished with veterinary surgery. I have stitched myself a few times.
Do you have old fashion tools and kitchen items that don't require an external power source? (Hand egg beater/mixer, wood working tools, etc.)
Yes.
If there was a serious disruption in our current way of living, would you have the skills to adapt? What other skills do you have that would come in handy if you had no access to our modern conveniences?
A 'disruption' in my current lifestyle? I do not understand that phrase.
We lose power a lot. We have lived in this home for 6+ years, so far we lose power at least once every month. We have not seen any month here, that we did not lose power. This month currently we have already lost power three times.
I am not sure what else could become disrupted.
A few years ago the FCC shutdown all high-power TV broadcast, so our township lost our one TV channel. Much of the nation lost their TV at the same time. Our town has no cable company. You need to be fairly urban to have cable. When homes are miles apart, a cable company can not make profit running cable.
Yes. I spent a good deal of my younger years on a farm. Problem here is not that I don't have the ability, but that I don't have the land. I make up for it a bit by harvesting wild plants and berries, though.
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Originally Posted by Everdeen
Preserving your food?
Not an expert, but I grew up helping mom and grandma with their canning. I generally can at least a few things every year. And dry some foods. I've also practiced some of the more archaic methods as well.
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Originally Posted by Everdeen
Making lye?
Here is a case of understanding the methodology... but never actually doing it.
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Originally Posted by Everdeen
Making soap?
Many years ago in my childhood. That would be something good for me to brush up on.
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Originally Posted by Everdeen
Hunting?
My father was a hunting and trapping fanatic, so I spent all my childhood hunting, fishing, etc. I haven't done much of it lately because it's not something that I really enjoy all that much, but I certainly can do it.
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Originally Posted by Everdeen
Cooking from scratch? Cooking without being able to buy items like baking soda/powder and other inexpensive everyday items?
Yeah, I love to cook, although I do use baking powder all the time (tonight, actually... blueberry muffins! Yum)--but then I have about 5 years worth of baking powder and baking soda on hand... just in case.
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Originally Posted by Everdeen
Making yeast without starter?
I can. And I love sourdough bread... but there is only so many hours in a day and so many things to do. I'll admit to using store-bought yeast.
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Originally Posted by Everdeen
Is your current house adaptable to going without electricity, gas, municipal water, and sewer?
Somewhat. I quite often refrain from using electricity for "practice," and I could easily do without that. However... I do not have a well or water harvesting equipment. That would be a problem. As for sewer... does squatting in the woods count?
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Originally Posted by Everdeen
Can you make your own clothing?
My mother used to sew like crazy (and knit, quilt, crochet, etc), and treated me like a little girl at times... so I know how to sew. I have never, however, used a loom. So I'm probably not the best guy in the village to ask to make cloth.
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Originally Posted by Everdeen
Are you good at recycling/reusing?
Yep, very good at tinkering with mechanical things and keeping them functioning.
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Originally Posted by Everdeen
Alternative medicine when no health care provider is available?
Well, I don't do doctors, if that's what you mean. But I'm a little extreme in that regard for most folk's sensibilities. I believe in the human immune system first and foremost.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Everdeen
Do you have old fashion tools and kitchen items that don't require an external power source? (Hand egg beater/mixer, wood working tools, etc.)
Yes, quite a collection of these. I prefer hand tools for most things from woodwork to cooking to whatever else.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Everdeen
If there was a serious disruption in our current way of living, would you have the skills to adapt? What other skills do you have that would come in handy if you had no access to our modern conveniences?
One thing that my personality/psychology provides me is a very "flat" mindset on almost anything. I have a very "gray" personality of not a lot of highs or lows, but a very steady "drone" through whatever life hands me. Nothing much surprises me. Because I'm a very "internal" personality, I tend to just take things in stride without a lot of drama. I just do what I need to in regards of keeping myself going day-to-day.
As for skills, I know what I know. There are a lot of useful things I can do with regard to traditional skills. But there is no such thing as "everyman." There are certainly things I have no clue about. I'm decent at picking things up, though, and improvising. I'm pretty cautious, though, and methodical.
Honestly, nobody can do everything. But, I believe that all of us are capable of doing more than we think we are. Our culture has pounded us so incessantly with "specialization" that we think of ourselves as one trick ponies. There is no reason that anyone who has a mind to cannot learn these sorts of skills. It isn't rocket science. It's just a matter, for the most part like everything else, practice practice practice.
I've been looking for correct information for years. How can I make a yeast culture without a previous supply of it?
For one, you can make sourdough 'starter'. Following the Old Testament law from Leviticus, I throw out our sourdough yeast once every year and start-up a new fresh batch.
For my beer yeast, I culture yeast from previous batches of beer. I have attended workshops on trying to culture wild yeasts into becoming beer yeasts, but the way they were doing it was far from my religious doctrines.
For one, you can make sourdough 'starter'. Following the Old Testament law from Leviticus, I throw out our sourdough yeast once every year and start-up a new fresh batch.
How do you make a sourdough starter from scratch?
How do you collect and culture wild yeast? Can you point me to the information?
Ooops, I messed up. I said Leviticus, which was in error. I should have said Exodus. Sorry.
If you focus on depending on store-bought cultured yeast then you can only make bread until your yeast runs out.
If you become proficient with sour-dough, then you no long require cultured yeast.
I was taught to start sourdough by my step-father whose uncle had been a 'sourdough' gold-miner.
To begin a new batch of starter:
Set out a mason jar with a 1/4 cup of milk and 2 Tbl sugar in it. Put the jar out on the forest floor with access to flies and critters. Watch the jar so it does not get filled with rain, nor lapped up by varmints. (the wild spores and molds that are carried on the fly's feet ARE wanted)
It is okay for flies, moths and insects to get into the trap.
In about two days it should be getting nasty, bring it in and fold in enough flour/sugar to make a wet paste. Yes there might be some dead bugs in it, ignore them.
I put that into my crock pot, put a lid on it, in a warm corner. Where ideally it will ferment, grow and smell. If it has been cool, maybe that starter will not 'work' (the same would happen if I had put it into the refrigerator), but whenever things do warm up, the starter will start working again.
In a week it will be getting moldy, it should have some of those green / blue hairy mold spores happening. Use it like regular starter but throw the first batch away. As to bacteria, the heat of cooking will kill anything that is 'bad'.
check it and give it a stir every day.
If it has been 'working' then I can use it for another loaf of bread. If it has not been 'working' then it has been too cool. You can store the starter in a refrigerator, indefinitely, it will not 'work' there, it will just wait for warmer weather.
Before you can use it, it needs to be 'working'. The 'working' is just the 'wild' or 'sour' yeasts re-populating the lump. So that when you need the dough you will mix them back into a large amount of flour they will be populous enough to rise it all.
As I said the first batch will have a few bug parts, the focus here is to get the yeast working.
Add a cup of water, 1/2 tsp salt, 2 Tbl sugar. Mix thoroughly. Fold in 2 cups flour while stirring until it is dough.
This will be the first generation of dough: put it back in the crock to work. Again if it is warm it will work quicker, then if it is cool. stir once/day, when it stinks and it filled with bubbles it is ready.
Take it out and knead it. Pull off 1/4 cup, and throw the rest away [usually dogs will love it]. This is why you do not care if there are bugs in the first / second generations, because you give most of it to your dog.
To that 1/4 cup of dough, add a cup of water, 1/2 tsp salt, 2 Tbl sugar. Mix thoroughly. Fold in 2 cups flour while stirring until it is dough.
This will be the second generation of dough: put it back in the crock to work. Again if it is warm it will work quicker, then if it is cool. stir once/day, when it stinks and it filled with bubbles it is ready.
Take it out and knead it. By now all of the bug parts should be gone.
Using a strong smelling starter:
pour in 1 cup of water, 1/2 tsp salt, 2 Tbl sugar, 1 tsp oil, and an egg. Mix thoroughly and add 2 cups flour while stirring until it is dough.
Once it is dough-like put it onto a floured table-top and kneed it.
Put the lump of dough on a warm window sill or somewhere warm for a couple hours to let it rise. [The yeasts need a chance to work on the entire mass of ingredients you have added]. It may rise in a few hours. If you home is cool it may not have raised until the next day. After it has raised it is ready to be baked.
Before baking, pull off about a 1/4 cup of the dough. This little bit will become the starter for the next loaf.
To this 1/4 cup lump of dough pour in 1 cup of water, 1/2 tsp salt, 2 Tbl sugar (as food for the yeasts), mix thoroughly and add 2 cups flour while stirring until it is dough. Then put this back into the crock as the next batch's starter.
What I have found, after doing this for years, is that 'first generation' wild yeasts will be slow to work for you. Slow and finicky. You can only get one loaf of bread per week from the starter.
But as you keep doing this, the future generations of the yeasts will be yeasts which work faster, more vigorously. Your training the yeasts, the slow ones leave, and only the really fast ones can re-populate the lump each week.
So by about the fourth or fifth generation of the bread, you go from a weekly loaf to every 5 days, to every 4 days, down to where you can make a fresh loaf everyday.
That is the 'culturing' of the yeasts.
I also understand that yeast cultures kept too long and depending on what grain you use may become 'bad', the original source of the drug LSD? I was taught that was why the Old Testament Law required that each year your house be cleaned thoroughly and all yeasts thrown out. [Exodus 12 includes the law requiring that you clean your house and throw out all yeast once every year.] I throw out our yeast and start with a fresh new batch every year.
To collect yeast for your starter - mix a little flour and water and put in a glass jar or bowl. Cover with cheesecloth, secure it with a rubber band or string. The cheesecloth will permit airborne yeast to get in and grow. No bugs. No critters. No mold. Put it in a place in your home that is consistently warm, about 68-70 degees. Keep out of direct sunlight. Look at cooking/recipe sites for all the details on ratio, feeding, etc. You can keep it going for years.
I just use the water off some boiled potatoes and a little mashed potato. Add a touch of sugar and flour.
The wild yeast will find your starter easily enough.
I just use the water off some boiled potatoes and a little mashed potato. Add a touch of sugar and flour.
The wild yeast will find your starter easily enough.
This is basically the same starter I use. Once it starts, you use what you need and keep back some, (I usually keep back about 1/2 cup) and add more flour and sugar to keep it going.
I have known old sourdoughs that are years old, and starter is passed between folks to keep it going and so they don't have to start their own.
I usually keep it covered with cheesecloth as well to let the co2 from the working yeast bleed off.
I just use the water off some boiled potatoes and a little mashed potato. Add a touch of sugar and flour.
The wild yeast will find your starter easily enough.
That's how I make sourdough, too.
Adding that it works best at the correct temperature. Use a large container because sometimes it foams up rather high. Put it in a place where your bread rises well to make the starter.
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