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#1
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Preservation equipment question
I bought a dehydrator to preserve veggies and meats . I'm wondering if
there's a way to keep the trays from getting nasty . I ask because I borrowed one from my neighbor and the trays had a build up of "stuff" that had been processed in the unit - mostly residue from making jerky . Cooking spray ? Line the trays with screen or hardware cloth ? Cheesecloth ? Or did he just not clean his properly after use ? This unit has a fan plus the heater , Nesco model FD-37 400 watt . Supposed to process a LOT faster than the straight convection units . I'm going to try some tomatoes early next week , and probably some deer jerky this weekend . -- Snag |
#2
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Preservation equipment question
On Sat, 15 Aug 2015 10:05:07 -0400, Derald wrote:
"Terry Coombs" wrote: This unit has a fan plus the heater , Nesco model FD-37 400 watt . Supposed to process a LOT faster than the straight convection units . I'm going to try some tomatoes early next week , and probably some deer jerky this weekend . I think your neighbor just wasn't as conscientious about cleaning his as some might have been. I have two ancient 6-tray Nesco "Harvest Maid" units. A light spraying with Pam or some such definitely will help with jerky. Some other items (such as tomatoes) might need tray liners. Nesco sells two types of liners, a fine mesh "clean-a-screen" and a solid liner intended for fruit leathers but which works with other items. Home-brew liners may be made from newspaper, wax paper, "kraft" paper (obsolete paper grocery bags), window screen (not copper) and "sheer" textile fabrics (voille, cheesecloth, etc.) both work well for home-brew liners. Any liner will slow the process, a solid liner more than a mesh liner. If your dryer is a double-wall model, tray liners will not slow the process significantly but some items will require more attention because they'll need to be turned or "shaken up" from time to time since vertical flow through the trays is interrupted. If your dryer is not a double-wall model, then trade up :-) For just about all items, slower drying at cooler temperatures produces better results. I have 3 of the Harvest Maid dehydrators. When I first got mine I bought plastic "embroidery" sheets and cut them to size. I can take them out and wash them when too much stuff gets stuck on them. I usually run 4 to 6 trays when I have a large enough harvest. I have had in the past, when I had more energy, all 3 machines filled with all of my trays. I bought many of my extra trays at yard sales. Boy do I wish I had that much energy again. -- USA North Carolina Foothills USDA Zone 7a |
#3
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Preservation equipment question
On 8/14/2015 11:37 PM, Terry Coombs wrote:
I bought a dehydrator to preserve veggies and meats . I'm wondering if there's a way to keep the trays from getting nasty . I ask because I borrowed one from my neighbor and the trays had a build up of "stuff" that had been processed in the unit - mostly residue from making jerky . Cooking spray ? Line the trays with screen or hardware cloth ? Cheesecloth ? Or did he just not clean his properly after use ? This unit has a fan plus the heater , Nesco model FD-37 400 watt . Supposed to process a LOT faster than the straight convection units . I'm going to try some tomatoes early next week , and probably some deer jerky this weekend . As Derald and Susan said, keep everything clean. I have a twenty-year old Snackmaster, Jr., bought at a Walmart at a hefty discount that still works well. I also bought several extra trays that I found at a thrift store for about five bucks for the lot. I'm not cheap, just thrifty. G I bought some nylon netting at Hobby Lobby and cut the circles to match the circular trays and they work great for small items. Mostly the dehydrator is used to dehydrate herbs and, occasionally, fruit from out trees. If you're just starting out keep a watchful eye on the machine as some of them can really dehydrate something fast. Dear wife uses it occasionally and always forgets to keep an eye on the process, thence producing really dry something or the other that is no longer edible. I tried drying some diced onion once and we cried for an hour so quit doing that. Most dehydrators have plastic trays and they can easily be hand washed when necessary and should be cleaned after each use with fruit and vegetables. Good luck with your new toy. |
#4
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Preservation equipment question
On 8/15/2015 1:08 PM, Derald wrote:
George Shirley wrote: I also bought several extra trays that I found at a thrift store for about five bucks for the lot. I'm not cheap, just thrifty. G Tell me about it. Both dryers and all the additional trays came from thrift stores or yard sales. Post Y2k finds. snip If you're just starting out keep a watchful eye on the machine as some of them can really dehydrate something fast. Dear wife uses it occasionally and always forgets to keep an eye on the process, thence producing really dry something or the other that is no longer edible. I tried drying some diced onion once and we cried for an hour so quit doing that. Oops, I didn't mention temperature control. When they first came to live with us, the dryers ran hot but were consistent so that with a little experience usng the tool a person could compensate, I suppose. However, off/on range was too far from the desired temperature to suit me. Consistency of temperature control becomes more important as the food gets drier. What I did was file the bimetal contact to narrow the range and then bend the base contact until temperature was consistently closer to the dial indication. The side effect, of course, is that early in the drying process, temperature might be somewhat lower than indicated but additional accuracy toward the end compensates by reducing the risk of overdrying. An old skimmer has to have spent at least one day working for the MA in the laundry. Remember watching the thermometers on the dryers? The clothes were dry enough for the Nav when the temp started rising rapidly. I think I was many years before your service Derald. We had folks that washed and dried our clothes for us. When I was a young airman and up through third class Yeoman I washed and dried my own clothing in the basement of the barracks at Pax River. Worse thing that ever happened is some jerk decided to add a red shirt to my load of undress whites, hence pink uniforms. Had to go buy more bleach and get my knuckles repaired at the hospital. Boot camp in Dago in 1957 we washed our clothes on a concrete table with a scrub brush and strong soap, rinsed, and then ran them up a line attached to a tall pole. Hundreds of sets of skivvie drawers flying in the wind. I don't miss those days but most of my mates have gone to their reward since then. Just got a weather alert for severe thunderstorms, we can only wish that it is true, it's over 100F outside at the moment and the clouds we can see are all white. Weather experts my back end. |
#5
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Preservation equipment question
On 8/14/2015 11:37 PM, Terry Coombs wrote:
I bought a dehydrator to preserve veggies and meats . I'm wondering if there's a way to keep the trays from getting nasty . I ask because I borrowed one from my neighbor and the trays had a build up of "stuff" that had been processed in the unit - mostly residue from making jerky . Cooking spray ? Line the trays with screen or hardware cloth ? Cheesecloth ? Or did he just not clean his properly after use ? This unit has a fan plus the heater , Nesco model FD-37 400 watt . Supposed to process a LOT faster than the straight convection units . I'm going to try some tomatoes early next week , and probably some deer jerky this weekend . My last experience with a similar task was drying some Bulgarian Carrots, Habs, and misc. other chilis in the oven in preparation for grinding them into custom pepper. Okay, the wife did all the work, but I watched without getting in the way. I do recall watching her line shallow baking pans with parchment paper and placing the peppers on same. Worked like a champ and we have enough home-ground pepper for the entire planet. AD |
#6
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Gossiping, was: Preservation equipment question
On 8/15/2015 3:17 PM, Derald wrote:
George Shirley wrote: think I was many years before your service Derald. We had folks that washed and dried our clothes for us. USS Boston's last crew and her last WESTPAC ('nam) cruise 69-70. New crew members normally spent their first week aboard working for ship's MA (good way to learn one's way around a heavy cruiser). I was a RM, a "critical" rating, and my division's CPO was the ship's senior PO. When he discovered he had two radioman aboard he rescued us from the MA after two or three hours but for those hours I worked in the ship's laundry operating the extractors ("spin dry") and the dryers. I was going to be a Aviation Electronics Tech when I went in, got to the school in Millington, TN and found out that aviation electronics where huge tubes and hard wired, dropped out deliberately and went on to Pax River and became a Yeoman, AKA, Titless Typist, was a good job as I also crewed on prop driven aircraft with VR-1 and got to fly all over the US, Canada, and the rest of the world for nearly two years. My flying job was "Flight Orderly," did the weight and balance, looked after passengers and cargo, nowadays it would be a Load Master. Made E4, passed the E5 test and got sent to sea on a WWII destroyer, a real sub chasing gun boat, spent a lot of time sailing out of Newport, RI and up along the Atlantic ice pack for thirty days and then we would go back to Newport, get the ship working good again and then to the Caribbean for thirty days. What a hardship! Got recalled to active reserves for the Cuban missile crisis in December 1962, got out in June 1963. For that six months in 1963 I got to go to college on the Vietnam GI Bill, they paid me enough money for that that my wife finished her last two years on it. I was making good money in a petrochemical plant and it was a hectic four years what with wife and kids, work, run a gunsmith shop in what spare time I had, farmed ten acres, worked swing shift at the plant and college. Good thing I was young and healthy then. Of course I had the advantage of studying at work since I ran a lone wolf control room well away from all the bosses and busy bodies. G I was intending to be a lifer but fell in love and my wife grew up at Pax River and wanted no part of being married to a swabbie who would be deployed three fourths of the time and leave her to take care of the kids and everything else. Love and lust trumps wanta be a sailor every time. We will be married 55 years come this December. Guess it all worked out. Two kids, five grandkids, six great grandkids, and our eldest granddaughter is getting married soon so there will probably be more great grands to love and teach. snip Boot camp in Dago in 1957 we washed our clothes on a concrete table with a scrub brush and strong soap, rinsed, and then ran them up a line attached to a tall pole. Great Lakes (North Chicago, IL), 1968, same same; hung'em with clothes stops. On rainy days we used steam heated drying rooms. Of course, when in school, I did my own on base. snip Just got a weather alert for severe thunderstorms, we can only wish that it is true, Here's hoping. So far this year, we're ahead of annual "average" but that doesn't mean much. It'll take more than a few such years to begin to reduce the groundwater/aquifer deficits. it's over 100F outside at the moment and the clouds we can Weather experts my back end. ...and you just noticed? Naw, I've known it for a long time, TV just makes it worse as they put these "Emergency" screens on every hour when someone at the weather bureau sneezes. I think my arthritic back is better at guessing the weather than the Phd that is on TV. |
#7
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Preservation equipment question
On 8/15/2015 3:56 PM, adule wrote:
On 8/14/2015 11:37 PM, Terry Coombs wrote: I bought a dehydrator to preserve veggies and meats . I'm wondering if there's a way to keep the trays from getting nasty . I ask because I borrowed one from my neighbor and the trays had a build up of "stuff" that had been processed in the unit - mostly residue from making jerky . Cooking spray ? Line the trays with screen or hardware cloth ? Cheesecloth ? Or did he just not clean his properly after use ? This unit has a fan plus the heater , Nesco model FD-37 400 watt . Supposed to process a LOT faster than the straight convection units . I'm going to try some tomatoes early next week , and probably some deer jerky this weekend . My last experience with a similar task was drying some Bulgarian Carrots, Habs, and misc. other chilis in the oven in preparation for grinding them into custom pepper. Okay, the wife did all the work, but I watched without getting in the way. I do recall watching her line shallow baking pans with parchment paper and placing the peppers on same. Worked like a champ and we have enough home-ground pepper for the entire planet. AD Good man, hope you didn't try to tell her how to do it. Mine gets mad when I try to help her, the puir thing. |
#8
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Gossiping, was: Preservation equipment question
Once upon a time on usenet George Shirley wrote:
On 8/15/2015 3:17 PM, Derald wrote: George Shirley wrote: think I was many years before your service Derald. We had folks that washed and dried our clothes for us. USS Boston's last crew and her last WESTPAC ('nam) cruise 69-70. New crew members normally spent their first week aboard working for ship's MA (good way to learn one's way around a heavy cruiser). I was a RM, a "critical" rating, and my division's CPO was the ship's senior PO. When he discovered he had two radioman aboard he rescued us from the MA after two or three hours but for those hours I worked in the ship's laundry operating the extractors ("spin dry") and the dryers. I was going to be a Aviation Electronics Tech when I went in, got to the school in Millington, TN and found out that aviation electronics where huge tubes and hard wired, dropped out deliberately and went on to Pax River and became a Yeoman, AKA, Titless Typist, was a good job as I also crewed on prop driven aircraft with VR-1 and got to fly all over the US, Canada, and the rest of the world for nearly two years. My flying job was "Flight Orderly," did the weight and balance, looked after passengers and cargo, nowadays it would be a Load Master. Made E4, passed the E5 test and got sent to sea on a WWII destroyer, a real sub chasing gun boat, spent a lot of time sailing out of Newport, RI and up along the Atlantic ice pack for thirty days and then we would go back to Newport, get the ship working good again and then to the Caribbean for thirty days. What a hardship! Got recalled to active reserves for the Cuban missile crisis in December 1962, got out in June 1963. For that six months in 1963 I got to go to college on the Vietnam GI Bill, they paid me enough money for that that my wife finished her last two years on it. I was making good money in a petrochemical plant and it was a hectic four years what with wife and kids, work, run a gunsmith shop in what spare time I had, farmed ten acres, worked swing shift at the plant and college. Good thing I was young and healthy then. Of course I had the advantage of studying at work since I ran a lone wolf control room well away from all the bosses and busy bodies. G I was intending to be a lifer but fell in love and my wife grew up at Pax River and wanted no part of being married to a swabbie who would be deployed three fourths of the time and leave her to take care of the kids and everything else. Love and lust trumps wanta be a sailor every time. We will be married 55 years come this December. Guess it all worked out. Two kids, five grandkids, six great grandkids, and our eldest granddaughter is getting married soon so there will probably be more great grands to love and teach. You are a very lucky man George Shirley - I envy you. Alas my life didn't turn out as planned - not even close. Boot camp in Dago in 1957 we washed our clothes on a concrete table with a scrub brush and strong soap, rinsed, and then ran them up a line attached to a tall pole. Great Lakes (North Chicago, IL), 1968, same same; hung'em with clothes stops. On rainy days we used steam heated drying rooms. Of course, when in school, I did my own on base. snip Just got a weather alert for severe thunderstorms, we can only wish that it is true, Here's hoping. So far this year, we're ahead of annual "average" but that doesn't mean much. It'll take more than a few such years to begin to reduce the groundwater/aquifer deficits. it's over 100F outside at the moment and the clouds we can Weather experts my back end. ...and you just noticed? Naw, I've known it for a long time, TV just makes it worse as they put these "Emergency" screens on every hour when someone at the weather bureau sneezes. I think my arthritic back is better at guessing the weather than the Phd that is on TV. I've been learning to use this site over the last month or so. With a bit of experience you can soon be better at estimating the future weather than those performing monkeys on TV; http://earth.nullschool.net/#current....99,30.28,1003 http://earth.nullschool.net/#current....99,30.28,1003 http://earth.nullschool.net/#current....99,30.28,1003 You can zoom in and out (mousewheel) and click and rotate the earth and see what's going on in real time. You can click a place on the map and get data for that point. (Windspeed, total preipitable water and wind power density.) I centred it over the US for those URLs, you can move it to where you want it before bookmarking it yourself and the bookmark will store the scale, lat. and long. that you set Enjoy. -- Shaun. "Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy little classification in the DSM*." David Melville (in r.a.s.f1) (*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) |
#9
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Gossiping, was: Preservation equipment question
On 8/16/2015 2:16 AM, ~misfit~ wrote:
Once upon a time on usenet George Shirley wrote: On 8/15/2015 3:17 PM, Derald wrote: George Shirley wrote: think I was many years before your service Derald. We had folks that washed and dried our clothes for us. USS Boston's last crew and her last WESTPAC ('nam) cruise 69-70. New crew members normally spent their first week aboard working for ship's MA (good way to learn one's way around a heavy cruiser). I was a RM, a "critical" rating, and my division's CPO was the ship's senior PO. When he discovered he had two radioman aboard he rescued us from the MA after two or three hours but for those hours I worked in the ship's laundry operating the extractors ("spin dry") and the dryers. I was going to be a Aviation Electronics Tech when I went in, got to the school in Millington, TN and found out that aviation electronics where huge tubes and hard wired, dropped out deliberately and went on to Pax River and became a Yeoman, AKA, Titless Typist, was a good job as I also crewed on prop driven aircraft with VR-1 and got to fly all over the US, Canada, and the rest of the world for nearly two years. My flying job was "Flight Orderly," did the weight and balance, looked after passengers and cargo, nowadays it would be a Load Master. Made E4, passed the E5 test and got sent to sea on a WWII destroyer, a real sub chasing gun boat, spent a lot of time sailing out of Newport, RI and up along the Atlantic ice pack for thirty days and then we would go back to Newport, get the ship working good again and then to the Caribbean for thirty days. What a hardship! Got recalled to active reserves for the Cuban missile crisis in December 1962, got out in June 1963. For that six months in 1963 I got to go to college on the Vietnam GI Bill, they paid me enough money for that that my wife finished her last two years on it. I was making good money in a petrochemical plant and it was a hectic four years what with wife and kids, work, run a gunsmith shop in what spare time I had, farmed ten acres, worked swing shift at the plant and college. Good thing I was young and healthy then. Of course I had the advantage of studying at work since I ran a lone wolf control room well away from all the bosses and busy bodies. G I was intending to be a lifer but fell in love and my wife grew up at Pax River and wanted no part of being married to a swabbie who would be deployed three fourths of the time and leave her to take care of the kids and everything else. Love and lust trumps wanta be a sailor every time. We will be married 55 years come this December. Guess it all worked out. Two kids, five grandkids, six great grandkids, and our eldest granddaughter is getting married soon so there will probably be more great grands to love and teach. You are a very lucky man George Shirley - I envy you. Alas my life didn't turn out as planned - not even close. Boot camp in Dago in 1957 we washed our clothes on a concrete table with a scrub brush and strong soap, rinsed, and then ran them up a line attached to a tall pole. Great Lakes (North Chicago, IL), 1968, same same; hung'em with clothes stops. On rainy days we used steam heated drying rooms. Of course, when in school, I did my own on base. snip Just got a weather alert for severe thunderstorms, we can only wish that it is true, Here's hoping. So far this year, we're ahead of annual "average" but that doesn't mean much. It'll take more than a few such years to begin to reduce the groundwater/aquifer deficits. it's over 100F outside at the moment and the clouds we can Weather experts my back end. ...and you just noticed? Naw, I've known it for a long time, TV just makes it worse as they put these "Emergency" screens on every hour when someone at the weather bureau sneezes. I think my arthritic back is better at guessing the weather than the Phd that is on TV. I've been learning to use this site over the last month or so. With a bit of experience you can soon be better at estimating the future weather than those performing monkeys on TV; http://earth.nullschool.net/#current....99,30.28,1003 http://earth.nullschool.net/#current....99,30.28,1003 http://earth.nullschool.net/#current....99,30.28,1003 You can zoom in and out (mousewheel) and click and rotate the earth and see what's going on in real time. You can click a place on the map and get data for that point. (Windspeed, total preipitable water and wind power density.) I centred it over the US for those URLs, you can move it to where you want it before bookmarking it yourself and the bookmark will store the scale, lat. and long. that you set Enjoy. Yeah, have an app for that on this computer, I love it, much more accurate then the gubmint weather heads. My best friend used to be the USAF weather guy at Cape Canaveral in the early sixties when they were shooting astro nuts into space. He later flew "spook" planes in Nam and retired with 20 years behind him. Now he farms pine trees in Loosyanna. We talk weather nearly every day. He's four months older than me, puir old thang. |
#10
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Gossiping, was: Preservation equipment question
On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 09:34:25 -0500, George Shirley
wrote: On 8/16/2015 2:16 AM, ~misfit~ wrote: I've been learning to use this site over the last month or so. With a bit of experience you can soon be better at estimating the future weather than those performing monkeys on TV; http://earth.nullschool.net/#current....99,30.28,1003 http://earth.nullschool.net/#current....99,30.28,1003 http://earth.nullschool.net/#current....99,30.28,1003 You can zoom in and out (mousewheel) and click and rotate the earth and see what's going on in real time. You can click a place on the map and get data for that point. (Windspeed, total preipitable water and wind power density.) I centred it over the US for those URLs, you can move it to where you want it before bookmarking it yourself and the bookmark will store the scale, lat. and long. that you set Enjoy. Love that site. Yeah, have an app for that on this computer, I love it, much more accurate then the gubmint weather heads. My best friend used to be the USAF weather guy at Cape Canaveral in the early sixties when they were shooting astro nuts into space. He later flew "spook" planes in Nam and retired with 20 years behind him. Now he farms pine trees in Loosyanna. We talk weather nearly every day. He's four months older than me, puir old thang. We've fallen behind with weather satellites and that means NOAA cannot be on its best game. Private weather services in the US buy/use data from EU sats and sell it commercially and that is often what you see from a lot of consumer-oriented websites, too. I am a weather junkie and have at least half a dozen pages I use daily just for fun. Nothing special, most just give me a better look at things that affect my own region. I would never be happy if anyone were harmed, but man o man, I love me a good storm. |
#11
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Gossiping, was: Preservation equipment question
On 8/16/2015 9:49 AM, Derald wrote:
George Shirley wrote: I was going to be a Aviation Electronics Tech when I went in, got to the school in Millington, TN and found out that aviation electronics where huge tubes and hard wired, That's funny. I, too, enlisted as a prospective ET but upon discovering that rating to require six years' obligation up front decided not to play. Since RMs didn't handle heavy objects and worked in air conditioned spaces, that was OK with me. Once one grew accustomed to a world of total adolescent BS, life aboard the cruiser wasn't too bad, although a bit hectic when we were on station. Naval gunfire support in South China Sea: Boomiddy boom boom take that you dirty hostile trees. Upkeep at Subic Bay, Philippines. Olongapo City, outside the Subic base, was the first town-sized armpit I'd ever seen. Flew in and out of the Philippines a few times, liked the people, didn't like Subic at all, was an armpit back in my day too. The remainder of my hitch, though, was aboard a (relatively) small ASR (submarine "rescue" vessel) at Key West, FL. As a FL native, man, I was home and Key West in the late '60s-early '70s was exactly what you might imagine... Duty there was rough: We actually had to install a defunct submarine's "reefer" into our ship's laundry in order to store additional bait so that we could extend our "training" cruises ;-) Not a bad life (which is not to say that it was a good life) but the women were all ashore back in Key West. I've often thought that Navy vessels should have a couple of divisions of ship's whores. You needed a Caribbean cruise man, a cat house in every port with advertisements just outside the dock area. Five bucks went a long way back then. One "real" winter spent in MD and another in MA were enough for me: Never again. I simply won't go to a place where snow falls, even for "a job". I hit Pax River in January 1958, snow up to your butt. At age eighteen I had NEVER seen snow in my life. Just didn't happen in my part of Texas. I thought it was the greatest stuff I had ever seen until I had to live in it for a couple of years. Southern Maryland back then was relatively rural, that's where I met and married my wife and her siblings still live there. Then I went to to Rhode Island, Holy Moly, we had to chip ice off the ship. I've never been back there. I married relatively late in life and am not a "family man". Have one son from my wild oats days. First met him when he was 36 or thereabouts and we communicated for a few years but aside from biology we're not "family". He has some kids but I don't know them. Have family within 50-or-so miles, used to see them at funerals but no longer bother. If you've seen one funeral... Siblings elsewhere in the country but they live in places where it snows so that takes care of that. As far as I know the only kids I have are legitimate and now close by. We taught our two to garden, milk cows and goats, butcher critters for dinner, fish and hunt, clean up after themselves, do chores, etc. Our kids found out the neighbors kids got an allowance and they asked for one. They were quickly told that they were allowed to live with us, allowed to eat our food, allowed to go to school, allowed to mow, work in the garden, milk the critters, etc. and that was all the allowance they would ever get other then being allowed to stay alive. End of story. Both are in their early fifties now, one's an Assistant School Principal, the other is the purchasing manager for a major hospital system. I reckon they grew up properly. Life is really good. |
#12
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Gossiping, was: Preservation equipment question
On 8/16/2015 11:19 AM, Boron Elgar wrote:
On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 09:34:25 -0500, George Shirley wrote: On 8/16/2015 2:16 AM, ~misfit~ wrote: I've been learning to use this site over the last month or so. With a bit of experience you can soon be better at estimating the future weather than those performing monkeys on TV; http://earth.nullschool.net/#current....99,30.28,1003 http://earth.nullschool.net/#current....99,30.28,1003 http://earth.nullschool.net/#current....99,30.28,1003 You can zoom in and out (mousewheel) and click and rotate the earth and see what's going on in real time. You can click a place on the map and get data for that point. (Windspeed, total preipitable water and wind power density.) I centred it over the US for those URLs, you can move it to where you want it before bookmarking it yourself and the bookmark will store the scale, lat. and long. that you set Enjoy. Love that site. Yeah, have an app for that on this computer, I love it, much more accurate then the gubmint weather heads. My best friend used to be the USAF weather guy at Cape Canaveral in the early sixties when they were shooting astro nuts into space. He later flew "spook" planes in Nam and retired with 20 years behind him. Now he farms pine trees in Loosyanna. We talk weather nearly every day. He's four months older than me, puir old thang. We've fallen behind with weather satellites and that means NOAA cannot be on its best game. Private weather services in the US buy/use data from EU sats and sell it commercially and that is often what you see from a lot of consumer-oriented websites, too. I am a weather junkie and have at least half a dozen pages I use daily just for fun. Nothing special, most just give me a better look at things that affect my own region. I would never be happy if anyone were harmed, but man o man, I love me a good storm. Rode out a few Gulf of Mexico hurricanes, had a tornado hit us lightly once, but nowadays if word from gubmint is to evacuate, we evacuate, getting to old to hunker down and take it. We were hoping for rain yesterday based on the weather heads, instead we got a nice cool breeze blowing through for about two hours and overcast skies. Almost as good as rain. We're currently having TV problems that I thought might be from the Mexican volcano eruption, now I'm thinking the DVR is getting to hot so put a small fan facing it. Yup, cooled it down and everything works like it is supposed to do. Since it's illegal for me to repair the providers equipment will call them tomorrow and get a new DVR instead. These big TV "providers" are basically cheap Charlies in disguise. |
#13
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Preservation equipment question
In article ,
"Terry Coombs" wrote: I bought a dehydrator to preserve veggies and meats . I'm wondering if there's a way to keep the trays from getting nasty . I ask because I borrowed one from my neighbor and the trays had a build up of "stuff" that had been processed in the unit - mostly residue from making jerky . Cooking spray ? Line the trays with screen or hardware cloth ? Cheesecloth ? Or did he just not clean his properly after use ? This unit has a fan plus the heater , Nesco model FD-37 400 watt . Supposed to process a LOT faster than the straight convection units . I'm going to try some tomatoes early next week , and probably some deer jerky this weekend . Soak/wash/rinse. They get nasty by default with anything that's "juicy" - certainly with tomato juice I don't bother to wash them until the season is over (or before the next thing, if the season has left me out of energy.) Jerky juice I might feel a bit different about, but I have not yet felt the need to make jerky, and it's old enough that all the white plastic has yellowed... ;-) I'm not going to pick it up and find the model number, but it's the old model with white, round trays that came with 4 and can be expanded to 12 - and has been. Got some of the "removable center" trays and it gets some use in the off-season as a yogurt maker. I don't think I'd add cooking spray to the process. I certainly don't, and everything comes off with a soak & wash. Beware that they get brittle with age, so scrub gently if you need to scrub, or just soak more. Have doe up two batches of yellow transparent apples in the past few weeks - they improve with drying, though the peeling and slicing can be interesting (things go to over-ripe in a heartbeat, and lose structural integrity when they do.) No way to use the peeler-corer-slicer with them (few would be hard enough) - OTOH, sliced thicker than it does and left long enough to dry, one gets more apples dried at one batch that way than on ones that can go though it. -- Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by Please don't feed the trolls. Killfile and ignore them so they will go away. |
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Gossiping, was: Preservation equipment question
Once upon a time on usenet George Shirley wrote:
On 8/16/2015 2:16 AM, ~misfit~ wrote: Once upon a time on usenet George Shirley wrote: On 8/15/2015 3:17 PM, Derald wrote: George Shirley wrote: think I was many years before your service Derald. We had folks that washed and dried our clothes for us. USS Boston's last crew and her last WESTPAC ('nam) cruise 69-70. New crew members normally spent their first week aboard working for ship's MA (good way to learn one's way around a heavy cruiser). I was a RM, a "critical" rating, and my division's CPO was the ship's senior PO. When he discovered he had two radioman aboard he rescued us from the MA after two or three hours but for those hours I worked in the ship's laundry operating the extractors ("spin dry") and the dryers. I was going to be a Aviation Electronics Tech when I went in, got to the school in Millington, TN and found out that aviation electronics where huge tubes and hard wired, dropped out deliberately and went on to Pax River and became a Yeoman, AKA, Titless Typist, was a good job as I also crewed on prop driven aircraft with VR-1 and got to fly all over the US, Canada, and the rest of the world for nearly two years. My flying job was "Flight Orderly," did the weight and balance, looked after passengers and cargo, nowadays it would be a Load Master. Made E4, passed the E5 test and got sent to sea on a WWII destroyer, a real sub chasing gun boat, spent a lot of time sailing out of Newport, RI and up along the Atlantic ice pack for thirty days and then we would go back to Newport, get the ship working good again and then to the Caribbean for thirty days. What a hardship! Got recalled to active reserves for the Cuban missile crisis in December 1962, got out in June 1963. For that six months in 1963 I got to go to college on the Vietnam GI Bill, they paid me enough money for that that my wife finished her last two years on it. I was making good money in a petrochemical plant and it was a hectic four years what with wife and kids, work, run a gunsmith shop in what spare time I had, farmed ten acres, worked swing shift at the plant and college. Good thing I was young and healthy then. Of course I had the advantage of studying at work since I ran a lone wolf control room well away from all the bosses and busy bodies. G I was intending to be a lifer but fell in love and my wife grew up at Pax River and wanted no part of being married to a swabbie who would be deployed three fourths of the time and leave her to take care of the kids and everything else. Love and lust trumps wanta be a sailor every time. We will be married 55 years come this December. Guess it all worked out. Two kids, five grandkids, six great grandkids, and our eldest granddaughter is getting married soon so there will probably be more great grands to love and teach. You are a very lucky man George Shirley - I envy you. Alas my life didn't turn out as planned - not even close. Boot camp in Dago in 1957 we washed our clothes on a concrete table with a scrub brush and strong soap, rinsed, and then ran them up a line attached to a tall pole. Great Lakes (North Chicago, IL), 1968, same same; hung'em with clothes stops. On rainy days we used steam heated drying rooms. Of course, when in school, I did my own on base. snip Just got a weather alert for severe thunderstorms, we can only wish that it is true, Here's hoping. So far this year, we're ahead of annual "average" but that doesn't mean much. It'll take more than a few such years to begin to reduce the groundwater/aquifer deficits. it's over 100F outside at the moment and the clouds we can Weather experts my back end. ...and you just noticed? Naw, I've known it for a long time, TV just makes it worse as they put these "Emergency" screens on every hour when someone at the weather bureau sneezes. I think my arthritic back is better at guessing the weather than the Phd that is on TV. I've been learning to use this site over the last month or so. With a bit of experience you can soon be better at estimating the future weather than those performing monkeys on TV; http://earth.nullschool.net/#current....99,30.28,1003 http://earth.nullschool.net/#current....99,30.28,1003 http://earth.nullschool.net/#current....99,30.28,1003 You can zoom in and out (mousewheel) and click and rotate the earth and see what's going on in real time. You can click a place on the map and get data for that point. (Windspeed, total preipitable water and wind power density.) I centred it over the US for those URLs, you can move it to where you want it before bookmarking it yourself and the bookmark will store the scale, lat. and long. that you set Enjoy. Yeah, have an app for that on this computer, I love it, much more accurate then the gubmint weather heads. That's good then. I only discovered it a few weeks back when I saw the URL in the background on a map the weather girl was pointing at. My best friend used to be the USAF weather guy at Cape Canaveral in the early sixties when they were shooting astro nuts into space. He later flew "spook" planes in Nam and retired with 20 years behind him. Now he farms pine trees in Loosyanna. We talk weather nearly every day. He's four months older than me, puir old thang. Wow!!! Still I bet talking with him makes you feel young. -- Shaun. "Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy little classification in the DSM*." David Melville (in r.a.s.f1) (*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) |
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