Wood Fired, Arduino Controlled Food Dehydrator Idea

This is just an idea I dreamt up in my head. I've been pondering ways to make food dehydrators that don't require tons of electricity. Solar dehydrators are of course the first go-to in this case. The designs I've seen for some solar dehydrators have been fantastic! But what about drying meat? Namely beef jerky, or sausage. Can the solar dehydrators reach 165 degrees F and stay there? I don't know.

So I thought, what about a wood fire powered dehydrator? Sure, why not? There's always plenty of small sticks and branches around that could power something like this; it doesn't take much. Think: rocket stove on steroids with a large clamber on top to house foodstuffs.

It would work like this. On the bottom, a metal combustion camber. It's designed to easily add more sticks and scrap wood randomly throughout the drying process. The camber is under the drying box. The drying box is full of racks to place food items on. The exhaust from the fire is channeled through a metal pipe that goes through the drying box, towards the back so it's not in the way of the drying racks. Heat from the exhaust is convected through the metal tube and it warms up the drying box. The smoke from the exhaust just vents out the top (from the same tube it's always been in). Perhaps the metal pipe could be a linear straight shot from the burner into and out of the drying box venting into the open air. Maybe it would need a few heatsinks to make sure the thermal energy goes into the drying box as well. The smoke doesn't actually contact the food, although that could be arranged with a valve if you wanted this thing to be a convertible smoke/dryer. Inside the drying box is a series of simply fans to keep air moving and help with the evaporation process.

So, how do you regulate temperature? You obviously don't want it that hot when drying a load of fresh herbs. Well. We have fans already. Why not add more fans and make them Arduino controlled? This set of fans would push in new outside air, on demand, instead of just mindlessly circulating inside air. My idea is this. You fire up the oven. Turn the Arduino on, and set the desired temperature with buttons and an LCD. The Arduino then monitors air temp and when it gets too hot, it kicks on a outside-air fan or two to cool off the drying box. This also circulates air at the same time.

Also, why not add a cheap humidity sensor too? I think it would be interesting to note the current humidity and if it makes progress.

Also also, why not make this a hybrid solar AND stove dehydrator? I don't see why you can't have both. Solar for when the sun is good, and stove for quicker drying, meats or when the sun don't shine.

Have feedback on how to make this idea better?

moving blogs!

I'm moving to another blog. I'll have it up in a week or so.

I don't think anyone reads this one anyways :P

Review: Merrel True Glove Cross-Training Shoes.

Why did I buy these shoes? Parkour, Running, Spartan Race, and Outdoors/Hiking.


They really fit like a glove! But a glove that you have to break in. For the first few days, they will hurt badly!

Pain? Yeah these were definitely some of the most painful shoes I've broken in. Yeah they fit well, except they dig into the back of my heel; To the point that one day of wearing them I was missing a chuck of skin. Perhaps it'd be better to break them in just an hour at a time or so. Bring a backup pair of shoes to work in case your co-workers want to walk to a restaurant half a mile away for lunch. You wouldn't want to dread taking every step the whole way there... Or you can do as I did and truck through the pain until there is no more pain. Okay, I did take several days off from wearing them after the first painful day.

Flexibility? Not quite like my Vibram Five Fingers. I can easily flex them by hand, but they are still pretty stiff. Maybe they will loosen up over time. Notice in the picture below how my VFFs are so loose, they fold under their own weight.


Durability? It's to early to tell. I suspect they will not live up to my ultra high durability expectations. I do predict they will be pretty decent. I'll report back in roughly 6 months to see if they are still in one piece of not. As you can see, my VFFs were not exactly all that durable. We'll see...

Can you feel the ground? Not as well as my VFF. :( Maybe it will get better as I wear them down and they get more flexible.


In Conclusion, do I like them? Yeah, once you get past the break-in hurtle, they become your best friends. For me, it's worth not having to deal with toe-slots and loosing expensive toe-socks. (yes, $12/pair) to the hungry washing machine monster..

Simple Aquaponics Growbed From Recycled Materials

I built a simple aquaponics system today and I thought I'd share a few pictures. The awesomeness about aquaponics is the ability to recycle/upcycle so many old materials into your aquaponics system; the possibilities are limitless! Junk yard aquaponics onward!


I got this used fish tank from a hydroponics shop called Brite Ideas (What a great place, even for second hand materials). I gave it a quick wash and I've now been using it for about 2 years.

Stay hello to some big gold fish! (and fathead minnows)

I cut out a piece of old plywood. I figured 2ft by 4ft would be a good size for this fish tank (110 gallons).

You may want to weatherseal any non-treated lumber to be used in outdoor aquaponics systems...

I completely forgot to take a picture of the 2x4 support framing that was used under the plywood. Basically, you just make your 2x4 cuts and lay them out on the plywood to make sure everything is square. Screw the 2x4 piece together and then flip it all over to screw the plywood down to the frame. To get an idea of what the frame looks like, imagine 2x4 pieces around the outside edges of the plywood and a center support piece in the middle.

Insert 

Imagination

Here

I did however snap a picture of one of the frame corners... Better than nothing I guess.

Square it up

Once the entire base was finished, I installed some old 2x10's (we found them in a flood) for walls. I put a bunch of screws into the side walls because the weight of the water will be pushing them apart and I don't want them to separate over time. Set screws into the bottom 2x4 frame (not the plywood) and also on the corners you can place about 3 screws joining the side walls together.

I previously got some recycled pond liner from someones old backyard water feature. It's important to preform a leak test on used pond liners to make sure there is no holes. I let water sit for about 2 hours monitoring for leaks. I did find a few smalls holes but I had enough excess length to slide the pond liner around and find a good continuous spot with no leaks. It may be that some of my trimmings will end up in the land field, but at least I was able to save the bulk of the pond liner from the dump. My eco-work for the day has been accomplished. Do I get a green badge or something? 

With the pond liner all sorted out, it was time to drill a hole for the bulkhead. This is where a good holesaw kit comes in handy.

Oops, the hole was too small! I didn't account for how thick this pond liner was. No worries, Dremel tool to the rescue. I just needed to carve out the hole a tiny bit. While I was at it, I got to thinkin' bout how someday someone will dismantle this aquaponics system. It may be me in 2 years or maybe it will be someone else in 10 years. Who knows. I still thought it'd be nice to leave them a message.

=)

How about some trim? We saved this stuff from going in the dumpster at church well over a year ago. I'm so very happy it's finally getting used Unfortunately it was only 4ft long and earlier in the day I decided to make the aquaponics system 4 foot 2 inches. Doh! So, the walls hang out of the trim a tiny bit... but hey, this is junkyard aquaponics right? It can't be perfect! It does look good for what it is though.

I installed the stand pipe for the bell siphon and my favorite part is testing out the siphon action. Of course I always build the bell siphon last and it takes forever for the stinky silicone to dry/cure. Actually, that stinky smell may be me.. considering I have been sweating out in the sun all day with my power tools gettin-ir-done.

Kittehs love construction!

I'll add more pics this week when I finish testing the bell siphon, gravel guard, and filling with medium and transplants from an old system.

Neon Trees

Quite a while back in the Woot Music Mondays Turntable room, I played a Neon Trees song when it was my turn to DJ. This started a discussion which led one listener to state that the Neon Trees concert he went to was one of the best shows he's ever been to. Interesting. I had been wanting to see Neon Trees, but the only time they came to town was to play in SXSW. The tickets to that are way too expensive to just see one or two bands, so I've never bit the bullet. Finally the came to town for a show and I knew I couldn't pass it up. I was a little worried about the venue being a little subpar for an act like Neon Trees, but it turned out pretty good.

Sound Check. Mic. 1. 2. 3.

... yeah I'll finish this post later.

The Primal Lifestyle

In 2011, I decided I wanted to take my health under my own control. I was rapidly gaining weight and feeling nauseated all the time, I finally hit a breaking point, and all time low. I had heard about the primal/paleo diet a few times before. I had even started reading Mark Sission’s blog, MarksDailyApple. By the time his annual 30-day challenge came around I was so disgusted with my condition that I decided to jump aboard and go for it, full force.

What is the primal diet?

It’s the idea that what you eat directly assists your body in functioning not only properly, but optimally. It is also the idea that what you eat could hurt your body, and bring your body’s performance down. Most of it is based on ancestral wellness, and all of it is based on science. We look at modern western diseases and draw conclusions on why we get them, and why didn’t our ancestors have them. Perhaps, it is because we are eating differently than our ancestors did.

Minding My Mitochondria - MS In Remission?

Dr. Terry Walhs was diagnosed with secondary progressive multiple sclerosis in 2003. She went through different phases of physical decline and was ultimately wheelchair bound for 4 years. Then she started experimenting with ancestral wellness and healthy eating. Perhaps you've seen her TEDX speech before:

I was listening to Dave Asprey's podcast "Upgraded Self Radio", and this week he interviewed Dr. Terry Walhs. It was good to hear an update! She briefly mentioned something about conducting clinical trials.. I was so exited about this, I had to blog about it! I cannot wait to read the results from the clinical trials.I am so glad that there will be data to support eating a healthy diet that is wheat-free and what will come of this.

Read more about Terry Wahls on her website.

Good weekend! Wordcamp and Spartan Race

Yeah It's already Friday and I'm just now writing about last weekend, proof that it was a good one I guess! 

Wordcamp Austin 2012

I attended the Wordpress conference (I have several wordpress sites) Saturday and I've got to say I was impressed. There was a great lineup of speakers and I gained a lot of great knowledge from being there. I was most impressed with a talk from a guy with a local media/web company, check them out at Castle Media Group. To summarize extremely quickly, Mr. Umstattd's talk was about the secrets for effective blogging. Not something I personally care to much about, obviously. I just blog for the heck of it, I don't care if anyone is reading or not. But, if you have a business, product, or cause to promote through your blog, then his presentation would have been great for you. He gave some 19 different secrets which I will not list but just touch on. He quoted first Matthew 20:26, to be a leader, you must first be a servant. Give your followers value, be remarkable, share something helpful. One way to do this is publishing infographics and sharing them on pintrest (to broaden your sphere of influence). The first real topic was "search". You need to focus your blog to a single topic for better google results. Optimize your images and give them meaningful file names, such as "Homemade-Italian-Lasagna.jpg". I personally am a visual searcher, I love to use google images to find the best result for my query... When I search for a recipe, I pick the one that looks the best, and then follow through to the blog for directions. When you hyphenate your filenames, google will parse and separate the words and they will have better search results. Also, don't wrap text around your images to keep people's attention. I know I'm probably not following that rule too well right now. If you've read this far, your probably screaming inside for a break.. some necessarily white space between paragraphs and images.Also, figure out how to use headings properly for better search results. Only one h1 per page, and scale down from there. Make sure you attach twitter and facebook to your blog for the retweets and shares, it's all about low-friction sharing - make it easy! The golden rule is to only ask for something once for every 9 times you provide for your followers, because then that one time is forgivable. Be a bold blogger, no one wants to read timid writing. You also need to focus on writing magnetic headlines that sell. After all readers are "buying" your post with their time, and they will be shopping around, time is their most precious asset. When it comes to RSS, there are a rules to follow... give your full post in RSS, not a stupid excerpt. I don't like having to click through to read the rest of your post. Because I'm using an RSS reader on my phone and don't have time to wait for my web browser to load your page, I'll usually skip reading posts that make me follow through a link. Also, look for places to host your feed, like linkedin. Does your website pass the radio test? Meaning if someone heard it on the radio while driving, will they remember the URL when they get home? Or, in my opinion, at least a unique searchable pattern to find you as I believe urls are dead. If you just read through this entire post, you must have the attention span of a dedicated monk, nice! I'll leave you with a final though from this interesting speaker:

Blogging is more like farming than it is link hunting. In hunting, you go out for a hunt and come back with a big kill and everyone is happy. This is not possible in blogging. You must work it, season after season. As it starts to mature you will see the outcome of your hard work. Don''t be afraid to write guest posts and invite guest posts to have your blogger friends to help till your land.

Church is starting and I'm running media, gotta run!

Spartan Race

Wow. That's about all I can say. I was amazed. Spartan race was awesome. I've done a few 5K mud races before so I thought I had a good idea of what to expect - wrong! The others were more of a "fun run" and as it turns out the Spartan is more of an endurance race. About half way I figured there is no way it's just a 5k (3 miles).. It turns out it was almost 6 miles long, through the woods, creeks, rocks, and hills. And the obstacles? Wow. Some of them were really designed to knock you out.

Self-cloning crawfish research!

I was browsing RocketHub (similar site to kickstarter) and couldn't believe my eyes! Someone is doing DNA sequencing on the marbled crawfish. I just had to chip in a bit for this one.If you can't know, the marbled crawfish is the only crustacion known to reproduce asexually. They are all female with males in existence.The goals are to compare the replicas to see how identical they really are. I've been keeping marbled crawfish for some time and have an interest in using them for aquaponics. The only thing I fear is about them escaping captivity. They could potentially take over the world. Think about it, only one of them has to escape. They hatch hundreds of eggs at a time, and can clone themselves 3+ times per year. Mine has already had two litters this year alone, then all of those babies start cloning themselves at about 3-4 months of age. So, why don't you give a little bit to this project so we can learn more about these little creatures. :)

Music Monday

Got three this week

Hope that made you smile :)

Run The Spartan Sprint At A Discount!

I just caught wind that a deal site is offering 50% off registration for the Spartan Sprint race in Austin / Burnet Texas on May 20th, 2012. I am super excited about the Spartan Sprint coming up next month. I've done some other mud races but from what I hear the Spartan series is the best.

Click here to go to the deal site and get registration for $39.. normally a hundred bucks.
Do note there is another $12 fee and parking. It's lame, I know, but this deal still works out to be quite a bit cheaper.

If you didn't catch this deal in time, you can still use coupon/promotion code "austin" to receive $15 off registration. I'll keep this post updated with more promo codes as I come across them.

From the Spartan Race website:

Spartan Sprints are muddy 3+ MILES / 15+ OBSTACLES course races. The challenging sprint races are a great way to get off your couch and start living. Beginners to hardcore warriors, and marathon runners alike come out to test themselves on the insane obstacles! This 5k race is comprised of mud runs, obstacles, trail racing, physical challenges and mental challenges all in a 3+ race. 99.9% of all people who try this event will finish, and 100% will have their thirst for mud fully satisfied!

Thanks to Molala for setting up this deal!

Music Monday

Another fantastic hit from Christina Perri. This one is called A Thousand Years.

Her brother (Nick Perri) was the lead guitarist for Shinedown's Sound of Madness album - one of my favorites. I saw them play once in 2008 and really enjoyed the show. He no longer works with Shindown :( However, he has a new band that I have been keeping an eye on. Check them out - Sinai.

Muddy Weekend

Run The Jail Break was a ton of fun. Honestly, I didn't expect it to be as good as it was. The Warrior Dash is the only similar in nature 5k I've ever run before and it left me high expectations of the other lesser-known mud runs. They had two really fun slides. One was a 180-foot long inflatable slide and the other a tarp-on-hillside slide. However, the second was soaped up so it was equally as fun!

I like to dive into things.

I also took Chris Hyde's class on natural camouflage and movement this weekend. Chris teaches many classes on wilderness survival and primitive skills (think Native American). I've taken a few before and really enjoyed them. This came his movement, stalking, and camouflage class which took it to another level. All I can say is wow - this class was fantastic. First we played many games that taught us great lessons on natural movement (being aware of surroundings, being quite and observing). These games were largely successful and tremendously fun. Then came the camouflage, I got to get dirty for a second time this weekend! After we got camo'd up in natural clays and ashes, we played more games were we went and hit (with less cover, and more blending in with our surondings).

Blending in with your environment is the new look

You can't see much from the small picture (below), but this is me hiding feet off a trail. I'm only about 50% covered by sticks and grasses. The natural camouflage I have painted on my body and clothes really helps to break my body pattern up. You could easily find me if you're looking, but if you're just walking down the trail minding your own business you won't know a thing. As with the case for many joggers and their dogs that day. Camouflage is a essential skill for wilderness survival. When you don't stick out like a sore thumb you can get near animals and they will come closer to you.

Garden elf

Then there was the last segment of Chris's class. Something that blew my mind and totally amazed me. I've chosen not to talk about it here because I don't want to spoil the surprise for any of you that may take his class someday. (This means his class comes highly recommended). The last exercise was definitely not for the faint of heart though. It really depends on you, and what you want to get out of wilderness survival classes. For me, it is all about personal growth.

I believe technology and modern living is great... No, it is fantastic. What a great era we live in today. However, on that note, I feel it's important to disconnect every once in a while and get your feet dirty. It's about personal development. No -- you do not have to jump in the river and take a bite out of a trout like Gollum from Lord of the Rings. Instead, just simply quiet your mind. Look up and enjoy the birds. Watch them collect supplies for their nests. Observe an ant carrying a giant leaf back to its home. Watch a fish stalk it's prey, an unaware dragonfly going down for a drink. Live in the moment and enjoy it.

I never thought in a million years I'd be a dorky bird watcher someday. :)
If you had a choice, which century would you choose to live in?

Disclaimer: Watching an ant for more than 2 minutes will make it incredibly difficult to smash it if you had to later.

Jump Past The Fear

Pretty cool parkour video:

Good song I've heard a few times on the radio lately:

Tomorrow I'm competing in Run The Jail Break 5K:
http://www.runthejailbreak.com/austin-2012.php

I was really looking forward to Run The Jail Break, however, I suffered a knee injury and haven't been able to train for the race. I can't even take stairs. Uhg. I'll still do the race, but probably not run it. I'll have knee pads and an ice pack ready for sure.

Darryl Edwards: The Fitness Explorer

There's a great guy in London that one day came to the realization that exercise should be fun. That guy is Darryl Edwards.

Darryl Edwards

While I was doing some website volunteer work for PaleoFX, I found out Darryl Edwards was coming in town to provide some movement workshops during the conference. I looked him up and watched a few of his youtube video... interesting stuff! I was excited about taking his workshop and boy am I glad I did! It was two hours of play - exactly that, play! I found it interesting and informative. Darryl led our group through a series of mini-games and challenges. I can honestly say I had a blast and it was the highlight of PaleoFX for me. Yes I did really enjoy listening to the many doctors lectures (Sebring, Rosedale, etc), but it was really nice to take a break from the conference setting and go have some fun. Make sure to check out Darryl Edwards site, The Fitness Explorer.

My movement session with Darryl was filmed and they've already produced a video, wow! Check out the back of my head here:

Thanks Darryl for coming out to PaleoFX to lead these movement sessions. I really appreciate it. I hope to bring some of your energy and enthusiasm to our local movement group. Hope to see you next year at PaleoFX again or hopefully sooner than that!

Since I'm posting videos today, how about this awesome parkour video?

This week I've been experimenting with intermittent fasting and observing the results. I will update more on this later.

Some good reading
Why Fast? Part One – Weight Loss
Why Fast? Part Two – Cancer
Why Fast? Part Three – Longevity
Why Fast? Part Four – Brain Health

Late March Update

I was experimenting with growing my own oyster mushrooms a couple of months ago. I used coco coir and coffee grounds as my substrate and the mycelium covered the surface nicely. Then one day, I left the greenhouse dome lid cracked open a bit and I guess the fresh air caused them to pop up and fruit. The first photo is from when I first notice them and the second is about 10 hours later or so. These things grow fast!!

Woke up to see them like this

Roughly 10 hours later, they got BIG!

Here is my late entry for What I Ate Wednesday.
There's been a lot of talk in the Paleosphere lately about pork. There's some evidence that suggests pork is safer to eat once it has been marinated or cured. Kudos for bacon, right?? You can read about it in the Weston A Price Foundation's article: How Does Pork Prepared in Various Ways Affect the Blood? To me, this evidence is inconclusive. I won't call it junk science, but their sample size is too small in my opinion. I do however hope that this introduces further discussion and more research on the matter. Since I never really like the taste of plain farmed pork anyways, it's easy to buy into the marinating/curing idea. It doesn't take much convincing for me that cured bacon is better than plain ol' fresh pork. A couple of weeks ago I tried curing my own pork belly into bacon and then smoked it over hickory, it turned out very tasty! I'll do it again soon and write up how it goes. As for marinating, I decided to try that experiment the other night. I marinated a few pork chops in apple cider vinegar and seasoning for almost 24 hours before tossing them on the grill. I didn't have any veggies planned for dinner, luckily there's plenty of stuff growing in my aquaponics system right now.

Frying some fresh picked kale and chard in butter, soy sauce, olive oil, and sherry.

Grabbed some mixed greens from my salad table.
Everything from my backyard, except for the pork chops.. they were grown at Costco!

The verdict: not good, I'm sad to say. I just didn't like the tasty of apple cider vinegar with the pork. It wasn't bad, just not good. I'll be looking for other marinate recipes for pork chops that involve something more palatable than apple cider vinegar.



Events coming soon :

It's almost time for the Austin Funky Chicken Coop Tour. They have a terrible website, but the tour is great non-the-less. Go check out some cool chicken coops around Austin if you are thinking about getting into chickens! fccooptour.blogspot.com


Speaking of coop tours, there is a new one called "Hill Country Coop Tour" that is about a month after the Funky tour. It'll be on May 5th and mostly up in N/W Austin, such as Cedar Park, Liberty Hill, and Leander. They don't have a website yet but maybe they will be posting more details on their Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/events/292393660808736/?ref=ts

 Jack Ingram will be playing a free show on Wednesday April 4th at the Nutty Brown Cafe as part of the KVET Texas Music Series.


Speaking of music, Shinedown has a new album due in five days. I've sampled all of their new songs and I'm having mixed opinions. I do need to listen to all of the whole songs when the album comes out, but I'm thinking it may not be as good as their previous albums. I could be speaking too early, though. Their last album was fantastic and I was unsure of how it would turn out before it was released as well. We'll see. I'm excited about it though!

Here's the music video for the first single, Bully:

Yay it's March.

March is my favorite month, it's such a great time. Trees are budding, flowers are blooming (have you seen the bluebonnets yet?), birds are chirping, and the air smells crisp and fresh.

My home grown gourmet oyster mushrooms are starting to pop up.

Both kale and chard love aquaponics and springtime.

Links for this week: 

Heather Woods answers "It's not realistic to give up grains" with "how realistic is it to be overweight, tired, and take a whole list of medications just to be able to get going in the morning?" She is documenting her and her family's experience of going on the Primal Blueprint in her blog. You may have heard of her husband, Tom Woods, a New York times best selling author.

PaleoFX is going to bring some of the biggest names in Paleo together for a conference in Austin this spring break. I'm very excited about it!

Something to think about:

You must take a little risk to get a reward

You must get a little lost to find yourself

You've got to speak up a little to be heard

You've got to be a little quiet to understand

Salad table update

March 2nd: (replanted the left bed with Tx Organics... same stuff in middle bed)
Feb 16th:
Jan 29th:
What's in each bed:
Cow manure	Texas Native Compost (recycled wood chips)	"Triple Power Compost" ... whatever that means

Super good primal bone broth soup

Made some good soup the other night while my Korean style pork ribs were on the grill, so tonight I decided to re-create the soup and document it this time since I never remember what all I put into it.

•  Beets and radishes (and their tops too!) - chop into bite sized pieces
  - These provide fantastic amounts of antioxidants
• Kale and Swiss chard - slice into thin strips 
• Cabbage, onions, garlic
• Onion chives sliced thinly 
• Mushrooms if you'd like
• Any other winter veggies you got growing in the garden... I'd like to try bok choy but all of mine are still kinda small
• Liquid aminos or soy sauce and some fish sauce if you dare
• Cumin, chipotle, and some turmeric - Read about how amazing turmeric is for you, it contains curcumin, whcih could help with cancer, alzheimer's, and arthritis... there's no reason not to add a little turmeric into your meals occasionally. 

 Well, I like to fry up my onions in some butter before I toss them into the soup. Makes them more yummy as they caramelize. I even tossed a few radishes in the pan as well.

OK. Get a little water and start warming all your ingredients up. I only tossed a little of the green leaves in at this point and saved the rest for later. The beets produce such a beautiful lush red color!

The main ingredient, bone broth! I had these cow bones sitting in my crock pot for about 24 hours on low. This is the second batch I made with these bones and they're still pumping out flavor. Bone broth is wonderful and contains many minerals you need, making it great for for sickness recovery as well. Make large batches of bone broth at a time and freeze your excess. When you're fighting sickness all you have to do is thaw it out and enjoy. Also try adding vegetables to the mix for even more nutrients in the resulting broth.

 Almost forgot about carrots! Completely optional.

At this point, I filled the rest of the pot with bone broth and let everything cook together for a while. The radishes and beets are soft and ready to eat. I then add the other half of my green leafy vegetables at this point so they didn't get over-cooked.

When it's done, add some salt and pepper to your preference and enjoy! I couldn't get enough of this stuff.

Hint: make a giant pot of this stuff so you can enjoy it as a side dish all week.

Carb count? I have no idea. I imagine beets and onions are the largest culprits here and they are almost nothing to worry about. I can't imagine a serving size of this soup being over 15 grams of carbohydrates.

Did you try it? Leave a comment!

How to make sauerkraut

Ingredients: 

• Red or green cabbage
  Here I use about 4lbs of green cabbage I got on sale for less than a dollar.
• Other veggies
  Here I use carrots and celery but there are many more options.
• Garlic and/or ginger to taste
  I used about a half dozen garlic cloves and a few little cubes of ginger (that stuff is strong!).
• Sea salt (about 1 tablespoon per pound of veggies).
  I mostly use Himalayan salt salt and you could probably get away with less salt if you are on a low sodium diet.
• Lots of love and caring attention.

Directions:

1. Peel outside leaves of the cabbage and save them! You'll find out why later.
   
2. Chop every thing up! The smaller the pieces, the easier it is to scope out and enjoy in a few weeks. I finely sliced the cabbage into thin strips and then cut them into small pieces. You can then toss them into a big mixing bowl or a large pot will do the job too. To make thin carrot pieces, I used a vegetable peeler to make long strips and a knife to cut them into little pieces. Toss them into the large mixing pot. You can also start to add your salt in doses along the way, it will start the process of sublimation. Same with garlic and ginger... small slices/pieces. It's probably best to go easy on these unless you are a garlic lover like me.
   

3. Smash and massage! Once you have everything in your mixing pot (including the rest of your salt), smash it all down with your fists or a wooden utensil. Word is old German grandmas (or should I say alte Omas) use the end of baseball bats or rolling pins for this. You are wanting to break the cellular walls of the vegetables so they release their liquid - the salt also helps with this.This will form a cloudy brine mixture that your sauerkraut will soak and ferment in over the next couple of weeks. Once you've got a decent amount of water sloshing around, you're probably good to go.

4. Pack it into your fermentation vessel! Traditional Germans have special ceramic crocks for this (I'd like to get one some day!). I'm using a glass jar so I can watch what goes on in the inside (how fun!). For this step, you are wanting to pack the veggies as tightly as you can. For each scope you put into your jar, pound it down a bit with your fist or whatever you want to use. In order to ferment correctly, the cabbage needs to be fully submerged in the brine sauce and not exposed to air. Unfortunately the tiny cabbage pieces will want to float to the surface. If these pieces are exposed to air, it will grow mold on the surface (which is OK if it happens, just check on it often and scrape off any mold growths). To prevent this, take one of the large outside cabbage leaves and drape it over all the small pieces before you pour the rest of your brine in. This large piece will keep small pieces from floating up, but you still need to hold it down with something. 
5. Find something to hold the large leaf down. I used a glass bottle (fill it with water so it is heavy).
6. Find a safe place to let it ferment. Note if you're using a glass jar, you need to put it somewhere with no light source. UV rays are bad for our friends, the bacteria. This is why pros use ceramic crocks. Make sure you place the jar into another container because it will overflow. I REPEAT, IT WILL OVERFLOW. Okey, maybe it won't overflow, but since it MIGHT, you need to be prepared. If it's going to overflow, it will overflow when you are at work and drain all over the place! What's happening is the bacteria is producing lots of gas that expands, which raises the cabbage, which raises the brine, which gets all over your bookshelf or countertops.
7. Check on it daily for basic maintenance. Scope out pieces that break free and float to the surface. Press on it daily to squeeze all of the air bubbles out of the sauerkraut.
8. After a couple of weeks, transfer to the refrigerator. This will slow down the fermentation process. Transfer sooner or later than two weeks if you want it more mild or more fermented (sour).

This picture is from a previous batch I made. In case you're wondering, I added some purple cabbage at the end because I had so much room left in the jar.