Scott Perkins

Jeremy VanGelder wrote:I'm curious if they would germinate anymore? If you grow new beans and harvest them, you would have fresh beans.

I'm curious if the red and pinto beans from the grocery store would germinate even when fresh ?   There are many different kinds of beans and lentils etc,   I wonder which ones germinate the best when fresh and when stored a long time ?  Maybe some of the different beans and lentils do better than others.

Joe Battaion wrote:Personally I would use a food safe bucket and not one that had any kind of chemicals in it.

I always leave the red or pinto beans in the plastic airtight bag from the grocery store.   I think any chemicals from a plastic bucket would have a hard time getting through the plastic bags.  

Riona Abhainn wrote:And this is why I don't do the prepping thing, I don't want this situation to happen to me.

I'm glad though you're finding a way to finally get it used up though.

I recently took two pounds of dried pinto beans ( 25 yrs old ) put them into the grinder first and made a course powder before I cooked them.
Now they cook in the normal time with the right amount of water and you get something like mashed potatoes but they are beans instead.

That is what I have found to cook very old beans.

Nancy Reading wrote:

Scott Perkins wrote: that the front and back bricks might have 3/4 inch space built in
to allow the flame to shoot out along the sides of the cooking pot if it is big enough to straddle the highest prominent (left and right) blocks.

I suspect you'd lose the chimney effect a bit...

Thinking about the design above - haivng the bricks sideways like that allows the pan to be supported part off the flame path so reduces the heating if neccessary whilst cooking, so it could be quite a practical feature.

Check out my recent entry where I did use the much larger concrete CAP BLOCKS  The dimensions were just right for only 9 blocks to create the same stove design.   I think three more blocks to extend the chimney would be useful to enhance the chimney draft effect.

I need only three more Concrete Cap Blocks to extend the Chimney.   I will take one block and with a small rotary grinder grind a quarter inch deep cut around the middle of the block so I can break it in half.   Then I will mount the two half blocks and two full blocks on the chimney to make it taller
and draw flames better.

pics reduced by 25%

Previously I showed someone making a cookstove with ten  bricks so I have copied the same design but I only need  nine Concrete Cap Blocks

With three additional  cap blocks I could extend the chimney  but I would have to cut one block in half to stack on the chimney part of the stove.

Christopher Weeks wrote:Some premium blenders have both wet- and dry-bladed cannisters. The wet ones have sharp blades -- similar to (but less so) the food processor. The dry blades have flat edges that pulverize instead of slice. If you use the dry blades on grain, it busts them up. The produce is less good than using a stone or burr grinder, but maybe it's acceptable. If you use the wet blades, you get similar results to a first approximation, but the blades are quickly worn to garbage. Same with the food processor blades. Unless you have a steady supply of free or very cheap food processors, I bet you're not saving money.

OTOH, if you were using a grinder, everything you said would be a great tip. Additionally, hand-crank grinders are quite normal while hand-crank food processors are pretty niche -- this is a concern if you're planning for the lights to go out.

I have only  ever used cheap blenders  and all of them had removable bottoms where you unscrew the bottom and take the rotating blades out etc.
on these blades, when you take them out you can sharpen them with a whetstone or fine steel file.   I always make sure the blades are razor sharp.
Also I must add it is vitally important that only about a third of the blender jar be filled up so that the grains will swirl and fly around.  If you fill the blender jar too full the grains will not uniformly mix as the grains on top will not be sucked to the bottom of the jar when blending.   You have to monitor closely when grinding so that you do not over-grind if you like moderately coarse cornbread instead of the "corn-cake" like corn muffins.

I have 18 or 20 domestic ducks on a pond and have tried all kinds of feed for them.
I thought for a while that purchasing chicken scratch at the feed store would be highly nutritious based on all the different grains
and with different brands of chicken scratch I could get different grains.  Many sounded kind of exotic since we dont normally see them
in grocery stores.    The problem with making cornbread was that all the grains are " cracked instead of ground with the pieces way too big to
make  a batter with.   I tried both a blender and an actual grain grinder.  I dont like corn muffins made with powdery cornmeal  and prefer
a more coarse cornbread so the food processor worked great.   I just followed the normal cornbread recipe and it turned out great and you
could barely detect that it was not regular cornbread.  If things go  dark because of nuclear war  or I am really really cash challenged,  I want to
have a 50 pound bag of scratch as I think that is the biggest financial stretch I could make if I couldnt afford regular food.

Also,  I tried a bag of horse feed oats and what I got was a bag of oat berries which is the oat grain before the hull is removed.
Well the ducks would have nothing to do with these oat berries...    So I put some in the blender and ground until a coarse powder
and then boiled like regular oats until  a texture was reached like regular oatmeal  and it was not bad.  Now here is the bonus.  
Apparently the oat hulls are pure fiber  and can do wonders  for your... uh.... bathroom routine.   Funny thing I gave some to my mom
and she became addicted  after a few days and she was telling all her friends and she wanted more to give to them.   At that point I
referred to the  "wonder food" as Race-Horse-Oats  or my mom would kill me if she knew I was feeding her horse food.  

Anyways there is no way to get nearly as much nutrition at a grocery store for the price  so remember if you ever face a survival situation
that you can plan for.   Go to the FEED STORE instead  

PS, the  chicken scratch cornbread   cooked  in iron skiillet  in the oven was seriously good !

I posted before about my old beans..........   This is kind of an update and review..........

So I have two 5 gal home depot paint buckets with snap on lids that I filled up with mostly red and pinto beans with another bucket with rice as my doomsday food storage at the
turn of the century ( 1999  ) and put them in the basement that hovers between 60 F and 70 F year round.   These beans will not soften no matter how much I cook them....   ( I tried 5 or 6 hours.... and again the next day etc.   I determined the beans were cooked but just not soft.    MY SOLUTION
is to cook no more than double the standard cook time and then drain all liquid and  pulverize in a food processer which basically turns out
re-fried beans mush ( like mashed potatoes etc )that is great with chunks of meat, cornbread or tortillias or crackers etc.    I feel like all the nutrition is there, there are no spoiling or bug issues etc.  ( Early on, I did find that I needed to place all the 2 and 5 pound bags of beans in the freezer at 15 degrees F   for 24-36 hours  to kill any bugs or eggs that might have been in the bags.)   I really have no idea what the minimum time is but I tried always to get at least a day or two...sometimes a week or two etc.