jockaneezer

Good on ya Wilf, you know it makes sense ! 😁

Just saw my first electric Weber bbq yesterday in a garden centre, think it was called a "Pulse" or something, nearly £500 ! At least the bottled gas bbqers have at last got someone to look down upon now 😁

Might be quite a bit of work involved in hanging an old CI stove off your cylinder. The stoves are obviously very heavy and that weight is designed to go down through the legs/feet to the floor. The walls of a CI stove are generally quite thin and I could forsee problems with a bolted on mounting cracking or even breaking out if knocked or leant upon. On the plus side, there are a few stove manufacturers that make theirs from steel which would happily weld into place, but that makes your search a little bit harder.

My son's mate made some cider a couple of years back, he made a press from some oak my son had milled, we put the apples through my garden shredder and used a bottle jack to press the juice. He only had one of those blue plastic "industrial" barrels to ferment it in and to be honest, it wasn't the best scrumpy I had tasted, might have been the apple varieties we used ? I wouldn't mind another go at it, especially if I could get a smaller barrel to ferment it in as there was quite a bit of airspace in the one he used.

I'm a big fan of using what's availible, often gets you "thinking outside the box". Mind, I didn't enjoy grinding all the galv off the 60 x 30 box that I "rescued" from an old Ifor Williams tipping trailer for my last project, but it was free !!!

Pop a bit of that skin in a jiffy bag and post it to me please Steve !

You'll need something considerably bigger than the 57cm Webber when you get to "eight swans a-swimming" 😂

What's not to like ? I missed the rugby but caught the Doobie Brothers on Sky Arts, I'd forgotten how good they were and I had a chuckle when I learned how they'd got their name ! I got invited to my son's mate's stag do last year in Prague, I think they wanted another old fart to be company for his Dad ! Anyhoo, we had an afternoon at a firing range on various weapons (AK 47, Glock, 45 revolver and pump action 12 bore) we went for a beer while they were adding up the scores and the young 'uns were going on about how they'd nailed it, they weren't chuffed when they found out that the old geezer had beaten the lot of them, including a serving Royal Marine. I only rubbed it in a little bit, honest !

Looking good mate. I'm fond of a corned beef sandwich or just sliced with new potatoes and frozen peas ( that's my emergency back up meal in the motor home !) I've been watching a few of Scott's videos, sort of takes me back to things I ate as a nipper, but have fallen out of favour now.

It's times like this that I miss work, wait, I must wash my mouth out, it's times like this I miss my work's facilities ! I could have rolled and TIGged a few vortex (vortices ?) on quiet night shifts. 😏

I had a look at the brisket in my local Lidl, they just looked like 1 kg bags of mystery meat and blood ! I do buy their individual aged steaks that only take a few minutes on the barbie and their antipasti packs and charcuterie are great for our pizza parties.

I like to save a bob wherever I can, but isn't there something about avoiding getting Teflon coated products too hot due to toxic fumes ? Might be worth burning and wire brushing the cake tin before it's introduced to food ? I've been looking for a suitable stainless bowl to attack with my angle grinder, I keep checking out all the local charity shops. I've been wanting to do some Chinese style wings with plum sauce in a vortex stylee.

Hey Justin, do you do the embroidery yourself ? I borrowed a friends Brother Innovis 2200 machine to put some logo's on my son's work shirts and the Brother PE Next software is a nightmare. It's neither user friendly or intuative. If the thread breaks, or you want to miss out a colour, you can't just go back a stage or skip a stage. It didn't help that you're only allowed the software on one machine, so I had to borrow her laptop too. I've got another batch of shirts to do and I'm not looking forward to it !

Is the NT gonna be at the same venue as this year's ?

We were at a friend's wedding late last year and they had a mobile wood fired pizza oven organised for the evening's festivities. As you do in these situations, I was picking the guy's brains about his techniques ( he got me onto higher hydration dough, which is what I make all the time now) and when I asked him about his mozarella, he said he uses "Fiore Di Latte" a cheese like mozarella, which uses cow's milk instead of buffalo's. This is something I fancy having a go at making some time and I bought some rennet tablets online recently. When we have a pizza session, I usually just go to Aldi or Lidl for their salamis and prosciutto and buy a few of their individual mozarellas in brine ( the pre-grated stuff is drenched in corn starch to stop it sticking together) I was surprised at the amount of liquid that is actually inside the cheese ( maybe a superior brand wouldn't be as bad ?) If I just slice the cheese and put it on the pizza, you tend to get a soggy patch of dough below the cheese which doesn't make for a good eating experience. I now tear or slice the cheese a few hours beforehand and leave it to drain in a colander, there's a surprising amount of liquid liberated. I'll have a look in Tesco's for the Scarmorza, it could add a new dimension to our pizzas ? Incidently, I always tell our guests that "less is more" when it comes to pizza toppings, we may have 10 or 15 different toppings set out ( I let people build their own pizzas, I'll stretch the first one for them, but after that, they're on their own, all part of the fun I think) once you have the sauce and the cheese, 3 or 4 toppings is about right, too many and it spoils the pizza, but it doesn't stop some of our "bigger boned" friends from loading theirs up, I once saw a mate who needed both his hands to hold the weight of the peel, carry what looked like a scale model of Vesuvius out to the oven, it just ended up a big melted blob, in all fairness, he ate the lot though !

Thought I needed a little project to keep me occupied and as I missed out on the clearance charcoal bargains at the local garden centres this year ( buggers brought out the Halloween stuff too early ), I thought I'd have a go at turning some of my endless piles of hardwood logs into charcoal. After a bit of web surfing, I decided that the retort method would seem the best way to go and as I could get my hands on a free 47kg propane bottle, I decided to base it around that. Basically I welded up an L shaped centre flue and welded it inside the propane cylinder. The design would need to have the opening at the bottom, so I decided to mount the cylinder on a stand which would let it pivot for filling and emptying. I knew the setup would benefit from some insulation and I had glassfibre available, but nothing heatproof to clad it with, to protect it from the elements. I went ahead anyway, but insulation is definately required. The pivot stand worked well and some indexed holes allowed me to lock the cylinder in different positions just by sticking a pin in the appropriate hole ! There was quite a bit of steam coming from the wood even though it was below 15% moisture, after about an hour, the steam turned to wood gas which you could ignite, at this point I blanked off the top vent, this redirected the wood gas into the fire tube and helped sustain the burn. I reckoned it would take about 3 or 4 hours to complete the process, as it was, it took nearer 5 hours which I think was totally down to the lack of insulation as the cylinder side facing the oncoming wind hadn't completely converted. The only expense in the build was some glass fibre stove rope used to seal the base, i had the cylinder and the tube, the stand was made from the chassis of an old trailer and I resurrected the trailer tailgate clevis pins to hold the bottom in place with steel wedges, an easier method than nuts and bolts I thought. I filled three 5kg briquette bags with the charcoal, the wood on the cold side had only partially converted and some near the top of the cylinder was a bit overcooked. When I tried it in the Webber, it lit with one sheet of newspaper in the chimney and was ready to go in under ten minutes. it did burn down quicker than I expected, but I can adjust for this the next time I use it. I did some pork souvlaki on skewers and had it with a Greek salad. Once I get some thin steel for cladding, I'll give it another fire up and see how it goes.

I bet he's never heard of sushi either ??

Not enough folk making dumplings these days, I like a few with my mince and tatties !

Hiya Bill, I remember reading about your build on 'Fun, glad to see you're still using it. My cobb built one needs some TLC, we got some fresh clay from the river during the heatwave to repair it, but it's on the "to do" list still. Graeme.

A bit late with my thanks to all who provided a grand feast but we stayed an extra day at Holme Valley, then had a few more days away Oop North. I posted a few pics on the Motorhomefun website and they were well received, with a couple saying they were going to check out the Woodsmoke forum. Can't beat spreading the love ! Val enjoyed her first Fatty and now I've got one on my to do list and I've been told to check out a sous vide setup too, I can see what I'll be getting for Christmas !

Had a shitty couple of weeks culminating in having our 8 year old cat put to sleep yesterday, so we've made a last minute decision to come to the Tailgate for some r'n'r. We've left it a bit late for bringing some Q along, so we'll fetch some beers and a couple of bottles of prosecco for the girls. Hopefully be there for late afternoon Friday, think we've got the second last pitch down in the camping field so I'm not sure how far we'll be from the action ? Graeme.

We got invited to a friends bbq and I knew it would be a traditional British affair, dodgy chicken drumstics, lurgey burgers and cremated sausages so I did a pork shoulder the day before to show them the error of their ways. When I was doling out the pulled pork, I explained to them about the 7 hour slow cook over cherry wood and the intracasies of the rub, one of the girls said " Ohh, this is fab, tastes just like tinned hotdogs !"

Looks to have had some use, that's what I like to see !

Thanks for the link. I don't do facebook either but my son must have logged in on our pc, just accessed his account, not sure I wanted to know half the stuff he's been up too ! I'll speak to Val when she gets back from town, we're looking for something to do in September and should have the motorhome sorted by then ( double tyre delamination coming back from Upton Blues festival damaged the wheel arches) Graeme.