More Whole Wheat...

I've posted a few times about successes baking with 100% whole wheat flour.  It's definitely different from white flour, and I don't do it that often.  However, every couple of months I find myself baking with it again.  White whole wheat is pretty easy to eat, though still dense; a 100% loaf with red wheat is intense.

I used to use vital wheat gluten, but haven't put that into my loaves in the last couple of years. It helps somewhat, but not all that much.

My most recent effort was in mid-May, with white wheat.  Although it was a cool early May (with a near-freezing low the second week), the house temps had warmed to the low 70s, allowing the overnight rise to accomplish something without supplemental heat.

The crust actually broke along the top.  This very rarely happens with 100% whole wheat (at least for me).  While this was a nice surprise, it's still a pretty dense loaf:

I still stick with about 3 3/4 cups of flour per loaf, 1/4 cup of sourdough starter, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt; the amount of water varies according to the flour mix and coarseness of the whole wheat, but is usually about 1 2/3 cups.  This mix with whole wheat leads to about 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour per two slices, or 200 calories, 32 net grams of carbs and 8 grams of fiber (according to the Fat Secret site).  That's pretty decent.

Canning Beef

As I noted a few weeks ago, I've canned some chicken.  After years of dreading using the pressure canner, I finally hauled it out and learned that it wasn't at all bad.  With the sporadic meat supply in the spring of 2020, canning it seems like a good approach rather than relying on same-day purchase (freezing is another option, but apparently everyone had the same idea and freezers sold out, so unless the capacity was on hand in early 2020, it wasn't an option).

I decided to try beef next.  I've bought canned roast beef before, and it has ranged from dreadful to not bad. Commercially-canned beef is a bit hard to find now, too, and its cost is comparable to home-canned...with the right kind of beef.  This obviously isn't an exercise to undertake with ribeye steaks or tenderloins. Chuck roast seemed like a reasonable cut to try.

I got two different three-pound roasts and cut them up.  The cutting process took about 45 minutes or so; I used an approach similar to that for making bread cubes for stuffing.  I just cut the meat into reasonable-sized pieces.

As the picture shows, the beef was seamed with fat.  I also trimmed some solid fat off.

As with the chicken, I got a little over 13 ounces in each jar; after accounting for the removed fat, I ended up with 7 jars--one of those had only 12 ounces in it.

The processing time was the same as for chicken--75 minutes, but I stretched it to 80.  After taking them out of the canner, they were seriously cooked (the short one is on the far right).

As they cooled, they all compressed down somewhat, and the fat visible at the top congealed.

I broke one open a few days later to try it.  It wasn't bad, but also wasn't good enough to justify 3x the cost of chicken breast.  If you have your own side of beef to process, it makes sense.  Otherwise, maybe not so much.

Cold Damage

My part of north Georgia had a couple of late freezes--the last was April 15/16.  Both were pretty marginal; the one the night of April 15 just touched 32 degrees and did not stay there long--about an hour.  The earlier one the week before dropped the temp to 29.

That's only about three or four degrees above the blueberry killer of 2017, but those few degrees really matter.  My blueberries this time around suffered no damage--they're supposed to be hardy to about 28.  The only plant that suffered at all was a new fig that's still in the pot.

The morning after the frost, some of the leaves looked like they'd been damaged.

Over the next few days the withered parts of leaves completely died.

It's no big deal; most leaves were okay and in any case, it'll put out new leaves to replace those that were lost.

Early spring freezing on new growth isn't the same as whatever has caused some other figs to die--one was lost when it was still leafed out in early November and got hit with a low 20s freeze.  Others have gone dormant and never recovered.  But spring vulnerability is an issue with figs.  It's usually not fatal.

Return of the Chuck-Will's-Widows

They're back.  As I wrote a couple of years ago, Chuck-will's-widows are migratory nightjars that are present throughout the south during the spring and summer.  In my old exurb-that-became-a-suburb, they became less common and finally disappeared over the 20 years that I lived there.  Development pushed them out--they won't call from underneath a tree in a supermarket parking lot; they need large swaths of forest.

I now live again in a place where they sing throughout the spring, so all is well on that count.  One thing that has surprised me, however, is learning how spotty they can be, even in good habitat.  I can always hear them in the back of the house, but out in the front by the road, not so much (this is true even without traffic).  There are areas nearby that are teeming with them, and other areas nearby where they cannot be heard at all.

I don't know what their status as a species is: the Cornell University site cites data suggesting that their numbers may have declined 70% over the 50 years between 1966 and 2015.  In some areas they have been all but eliminated--such as my former neighborhood--but that population may have simply shifted elsewhere.  Tree cover in the Southeast may or may not be down...but it may well be that the type of cover they want is lower now than it was back in 1966.  Individual trees or small isolated copses won't get it done for them.

I'm glad they're in my new neighborhood.  I hope they stay.

Sauerkraut Reveal 2020

On day 29, I opened up the kraut crock.  The temps for the April fermentation period were pretty close to ideal.  Early in the month it got into the mid-70s, but was otherwise mostly in the targeted range of about 66-72.

I had profound troubles with the sauerkraut tide again.  At times the water in the moat almost disappeared, then hours later (after more water was added) it would overflow and run down the sides.

The picture shows one of the low times.  There were a few occasions when it dropped below the notch in the lid, making me wonder if the air seal had been broken.  I tried shifting the lid around a bit but nothing ran out.  Nonetheless, the seal apparently stayed intact.

When I finally opened it, the view was pretty similar to last time:

That isn't mold on the top, just petrified foam.  Once again, it became apparent as I was trying to lever the glass weights out of the crock that 7-8 pounds of cabbage is the maximum this crock can hold.  Although I was maybe a pound lighter than last time going in, I got about the same amount when the jars were filled--a little over 1.25 gallons.

The Cool-Whip container at the left holds some, as well, although not much--less than a pint's worth.

The pH is about 4.0, as near as I can tell; the red tinting of the cabbage makes it hard to get a good read.

The flavor is outstanding, though the texture is much different from thin-sliced sauerkraut.  And the core pieces aren't objectionable.  This one was a success... and with the temps expected to be in the upper 80s for the first May weekend in north Georgia, this will definitely be the last batch until fall.