apple juice concentrate

Thought I would share the results of my latest home experiment! My partner makes apple presses, so every year about now we start collecting apples, from local parks, friends, neighbours and over freecycle-type groups. Last year we made about 70l, this year so far we have done a bit less. After extracting the juice using the scratter and press we then tend to pasteurise it. If we had a freezer I would be tempted to freeze it, as I have heard that retains more of the vitamins and nutrients, but at the moment a freezer is carbonifically(if that is anything like a real word..) unviable for our household.

Anyway, we pasteurise by one of two methods; first, and least satisfactory, we heat up the juice in a large stainless steel pan to 80 degrees for about 15 minutes, then pour it straight into plastic bottles, and screw the lids on. This is less good as plastic bottles release toxins as they get older, especially if they are heated up! Second method is to pour juice into wine bottles, place bottles in the large pan, fill with water over the liquid level in the bottles, raise temperature to 80, hold it there for 15 minutes and immediately cork with sterilized corks.

This year we had gathered enough wine bottles that we could just use them. This has been the activity in my house for about 5 days, and now my partner has moved onto cider, and I am not well versed in that.

As I spent a whole day pasteurising, I then felt I had permission to experiment with the days leftovers. Now, to get the children to drink enough liquids (they seem to think they are evolved life forms that take on liquids via osmosis, or something), I buy apple juice concentrate, rather than cordial, or that nasty squash with all the sweeteners and preservatives in. Costs a bomb, though, at least £4 for half a pint, and that will barely last a week. Anyhoo, I decided to give it a go, making it at home. I had 2/3 gallons of juice, which over 8 hours of vigorous boiling, has given me 3 pints of concentrate, and a very steamy kitchen. The walls, which have just been sugar-soaped, started extruding tar again!

I have yet to work out the costing on this, but as it is very locally sourced and produced, and our energy, although not home produced yet, is %100 renewable, I would say it was worth it, as a carbon reducing measure. Unfortunately, the amount I would have to produce to keep the household in juice is inhibiting, as is the dampness in the kitchen. It has also been strongly recommended by the other adult in the house that we just drink pasteurised juice, but this is a big space investment.

To make sure your juice is "concentrated", you can use a hydrometer, such as you get for wine making, which kind of floats in you COOL liquid. Compare where it sits in commercial concentrate to your concoction. It went way below the chart on mine, so it took many comparisons to feel satisfied.

Apple juice concentrate is also used in wholefood and healthy children's cookery, as a sugar alternative, and to sweeten soya milk, although a have had no success with that one at home. I also wouldn't put it in tea, as it curdles!! So it would be the closest thing you are likely to get as home grown sugar, unless you keep bees.

The picture is of the children pressing cherry juice. The Man has made several of these presses, for wedding gifts and a local press share group in Leicester. It also goes to several events in the area. It is %75 efficient at the last measure, higher than any other model we have seen! For more info on the press and other interesting woodwork you can email him on rupert.goffeindesignsATgmailDOTcom.

shop update

This is what I do in my "spare" time...
CatInnaHat Creations

Simon the Dinosaur, from lets knit! magazine, a birthday present and stash-busting project. The Man almost died when he saw these photos of the little monster IN the PC! this is how we keep the PC from overheating, rather than install more fans, but little creatures in it where not the plan..

all the knitting in the house go YEAH!

Not that I have actually finished anything recently(other than Simon the dinosaur..), but having just been down in Kent visiting the Mans family and only taking ONE knitting project, I hammered away at it, while I wasn't reading. Sherbet is 3/4 done down the body, but now I'm home I most likely won't do the boring knitting, I'll find a new project.

I tell a lie, I have recently finished the Girls cardi, Sorbet. The beast that broke my needles only had mild misadventures from that point, due to running out of the yarn I was trying to use up, albeit a little early... so she has a funky cardi, and the Boy has an Owls sweater on the way(which will get its own post!)

While I was away I redescovered the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, as the Mans sister owns nearly every related book. I tried reading Little house in the big woods to the Boy, but frankly, he wasn't interested. Unfortunately I was, and have managed the first three in five days! I will have to order the rest from the library, I expect...

keeping the batts away!!

small snippet of hilarity; my children walked into the craft room while I was using the drum carder, and generally sorting out some fibrey stuff.
I talked with them about what was up to, reminded them to keep there fingers away from the carder(Small Girl has had some misadventures before:( ), and went back to my carding. moment later, refocused on there playing, to overhear Small Girl saying, as she clutched a zip-lock bag of random fibre, " no bats on my wool, I no bats on wool"! so it is not moths that are the big problem for the floof in my house, apparently, but the wool-eating batts!

P3tog broke my needles!

In my craft room I have about 1/5 of the total floor space available. This is because I hoard. 18 months ago the 4 of us where living in a flat with 1 bedroom and a kitchen/diner/sitting room. I am not complaining-we rented from a lovely family we are still very close to, who lived in the rest of the house, I am just making a comparison. Now we have a 4 bedroom 1930's(ish) ex-council terraced house, and it was full of "stuff" within 2 months....

Anyway, I have identified that my stash of yarn, fabric and magazines are all unnecessarily large, and in an attempt to cut down, I plan to knit one pattern out of each magazine I own, incorporating at least one ball of "stash". I should also be making more clothes for my family, but that is a more intense activity, and the results are more frequently turned down.

But back to the knit. After a successful dinosaur who is a fine present for any of the many young people turning 3 this year I am acquainted with, I have moved onto the more stylish Sorbet pattern from Yarn Forward magazine 17, a child's cardie with ruffled bottom edge, striping and eyelet patterning between. choosing to forgo the traditional "girly" colours, and acrylic yarn suggestion, I have gone for jewel toned 100% cotton, which I shall say now was a suggested alternative!

starting at the bottom, I cast on an unreasonable amount of stitches on rather small needles. my 3.25mm knit pro straights are needles of choice at the moment, but I have short ones, so after a bit of faff, I transferred the stitches onto a circular. at the end of the ruffle section, the pattern called for an ass-load of p3tog's to reduce at the top of the ruffle. now I have found "3togs" a strain at the best of times, but P3tog, 100% cotton yarn and tight gauge resulted in my second knit pro symphony breakage, Boo-hoo! Split along the grain, so blatantly my fault, no manufacturing problem (last time Alison at p2tog sent me a new pair really promptly, excellent service). I plan to get the Man to glue the beast back together this time, as the mend he did on the straights a child stood on was fantastic! It is a rather convenient coupling really, the knitter/spinner and the carpenter...
before/after photos of the needle to follow, when I have earned enough Man-points to broach the subject of the job...

so many things, so little time...and a bit of rain, too

It has only been a month since I posted last, but it seems like forever. We have been so busy here, with monster birthday party for the smallest, where I packed my house out with small children and there parents, and the course I am running at the local Home-Educators group.
My knitting has not progressed as far I as I would have desired in this past month, with the boring part of my Gothic Leaves shawl being completed, but the lace edge being too intimidating to carry on. There is a couple of designs on there way into the public domain though, so keep watching! A chunky weight semi-fitted cardi for the Ladeez and a Dragon Hoodie for the smalls, both in the test knitting stage, but feeling very proud of both!!
The course I am doing for the older Home-edders is fantastic, at least for me! I am putting together 6+ sessions covering different aspects of outdoors adventuring skills, and then plan to go on various rambles with them, great fun! Lots of games in the mix, lots of energetic minds to brainstorm with. only problem is it takes a lot of research, as it has been like, 5 years since I seriously did anything like this myself, but it is great to go over the basics, and question how I used to do stuff in the past.
This past weeks session I decided to look at food and nutrition. When I had previously been on walking camps, our diet consisted mainly of Porridge, Hot chocolate, bourbon buiscuts, pasta with scrambled sosmix & peanut butter and chocolate spread sandwiches. I generally got home with a cold or 'flu after that for a week!
So after reading a sports nutrition book that came highly recommended(just kidding-it was the only one I could get my hands on the night before the session!) I put together a session for the young people to help them look at how they eat, how they could eat better, and how they could put together appropriate menus for camps, taking the nutrition and space/cooking/preservation issues into account. 3 hours work. the next day, went to the group and was faced with apathy towards joining in on nearly all sided, so I didn't bother. We played games in the rain, the few of us who where up for it, and my paper-work has gone in the folder for another day. Damn autonomy!

Dying in your sleep is not safe....get out of bed first!

so, I started this blog at a time when I was literally, dying in my sleep. I was seeing colours in everything. I think I had just dyed up a load of BFL Top for the Small Girls jumper, and I called the yarn Snowsuit. It was winter, and the view at the bottom of my garden at about 3:30, kinda just before sunset, was soooo rich, that I wanted to dye it, to keep forever. So I did. stove top on BFL top, with a solid green and semi-solid brown/orange and a blue/white. Now I have finished spinning it up, and Small Boy has decreed it good enough for his next hand knit sweater, though I'm not sure there is enough.

I'll do another top-down raglan design, but perhaps open all the way up the front, so if I run out of this handspun, it will look fine "topped up" with something different. Also i found with the last one it was great for random yarn, as I could write the pattern to the gauge of the yarn. this time though I will not cut corners by knitting straight off the bobbin. oh, no. the last one bloomed an ass-load. I have learned from my mistake>:P
Any hoo, good job I did dye it up, as the council are trying to build bungalows back there now, and that lovely backdrop of sycamore trees will be chopped down to make way for more ill-planned housing, sigh. the yarn is very satisfying though.

Me time!

even with the pc back, and gardening in full swing, i still have found knitting time this past month. i had forced it upon myself, as at the beginning of april i was supposed to be having a stall at the local Independant Arts Centre, but the organizer was super-slack, and didn't get back to me, over 2 weeks of attempted communication. so now i have a pile of baby booties, and know i can fit in 3 hours of knitting a day, if i really don't want to see another human-being, or cook. so now i have been jaded by this lack of response & warmer weather, i got out something for ME. thats right. put aside the mummy Material and got started on my Sherbet cardi, from Yarn Forward magazine. nice lace-ish pattern, I will feel so chuffed when it is done, knowing I did it all.

It is good to remember you are allowed your own time when you are a parent, to be unproductive or frivalous with your time. the Man goes into his workshop and does random things like turning fire extinguishers into hard-core Super-Soakers, and I am knitting thinnish guage sox or cardis for myself. sometimes I read, but that is dangerous (I finished the twilight series, with only one more up-all-night session. close call!). if you pretend it is "work(like the booties)", it seems to be easier to get childcare, but deep down, it doesn't count.
anyway, the pattern is mostly well-written, and the pics on ravelry are great for helping through the less-clear measurements on the yoke.

time stood still. i wish...

Yeah... so started a blog, then killed the PC. Took 3 months to get back up and running, but we are there, minus ALL our software. I still have the sims2 saves though, the photos and music. just a lot of work, which I don't generally have with the two kids.
So anyhoo, back in the present and will hopefully be posting better and more fully, like, with pics 'n' stuff.
It left a lot of time for real life, having no PC. I got to see my partner, I got to knit. I redescovered "Books", and stayed up all night reading Twilight, by Stephanie Meyer. that is something i do not recommend. the book is great, not too yikky and romantic, or endless details of what hair-do and clothes the main character happened to spend all morning deciding on like SOME teen novels, but light-hearted enough for me not to have bad dreams. probably because I was sleep deprived really.
I will not be watching the movies though. I am one of those souls that can't abide a good book being ripped to shreds on screen. and it would mess with the whole "hot vampire" pic I have got going on in my head, too...
It is quite interesting(to me at least, and perhaps some of you), as a teenager I was heavily against age-related prohibitions, (as a concept, not just because I was on the wrong side of it!), but as a parent and spending more time around young teens too I am more aware of the subtleties of limitation to stimulation that young people experience. Not age restrictive, but maturity and ability restrictive, and just how careful these limitations need to be put across. I wish I had more guidance in my stimuli as a young/pre-teen, as I have a suspicion I would have a lot less "stuff" now, in terms of relationship expectations, if I had been kept away from teen novels and chick-flicks!
Anyway, that delve into deep and meaningful land brings me back to Twilight. doesn't seem that bad, would let my little sister read it.