Home made chocolate

I recently got inspired by some photos posted to Instagram by @mapchocolate
 You can actually make chocolate from beans!
I bought some roasted nibs, roasted beans and unroasted beans from http://chocolatealchemy.com/
These are roasted beans from the Dominican Republic. They smell great!

I got this George Foreman Jr. rotisserie off of Craigslist for $20 

I used my old Champion Juicer to crack the beans.

Here is the winnower to separate the husks from the cracked beans.
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Fully winnowed nibs.

My first batch is a 65% Chocolate. That means it is 60% coacoa nibs, 5%CocoaButter and 35%Sugar.
It all goes in the melanger that I got off of Craigslist too.

It grinds for hours and hours.

Here it is getting smooth. 

Automatic chicken coop door

Here is my new coop. It has a homemade solar powered automatic door.

I used a car door window motor to drive it. It has a couple of limit switches to recognize when the door is open or closed..



I used a double pole double throw relay to change the polarity of the current in order to open or close the door.

Here is the charge controller and battery. The one the came with the solar panel burned up.


The whole setup.

The photo electric switch and the PV panel.

Here is a terrible schematic:

Falafel

Soak a bag of chickpeas and fava beans overnight.

Grind them into a course paste. 

Finally chopped parsley cilantro onions and garlic.

Add cumin salt pepper and baking soda. Mix well.

Roll into balls and freeze. 

Washed curd cheese

• 4 Gal. whole milk
• 1/2 pint heavy cream
• Mesophillic c100, 2 units
• 1 tsp CaCl2
• 1/2 tsp rennet
• 45 gr NaCl

• 77 degrees stir in culture.
• Raise temp to 95, ripen 45 min

• Rennet at pH6.4, rcf 3x, 35min rest.

• Cut 2 cm, rest 8 min

• Stir to pH6.2 85 min

• Stir slowly

• Settle

• Drain to 2cm from curd

• Add back 2 gal 67 degree water to reduce temp to 87 deg. and pH6.0

• At 20 min and pH 5.9 drain completely.

• Salt curds then hoop, stacking molds and adding a little pressure.

• About 2hrs and pH 5.6 unmold

• Let dry a couple of days, flipping

• Wax and rest for 2 months.

Penney's new compost pit

Here's what's left of the old pit. A giant pile in succeeding stages of decay.

Three bins, Penney's dream.

Movable slats.

Muddy February day, Penney's stoked.

Aaron helps!

Black gold!

Hazelnuts in bloom

Filberts bloom in January. See those tiny red protrusions at the ends of the buds?They are the flowers. The long things on the right are called catkins, they produce the pollen. Although  hazelnuts are Monoecious  they do not self pollinate.