Steve, I fully enjoyed your piece on the press ( matter of fact , the entire issue is one of the best since I have been subscribing). My question, will the disposal utilized in the design process other fruits into a working pulp (such as grapes or plums ) without getting clogged?

-- Jay Blair (jayblair678@yahoo.com), August 15, 2000

Answers

I don't really know yet. I plan on squeezing some peaches this weekend for a little homemade wine. I think if I pit them first and run them through the disposal there should be enough juice to make the pulp flow.

With the apples it worked very good my only complaint was you had to quarter them to fit down the drain but being ground up that fine you really got a lot of juice without having to press it that hard.

It took me 5 days to build the pretty oak two barrel press and it works good but I built the plastic bucket one in about 3 hrs. I had more money in just the oak boards than in the whole other press including the disposal and jack.

Does anyone know if grapes and plums will work?

-- Steve Belanger (csymag@tds.net), August 15, 2000.

THAT DID IT, STEVE ! Everytime you go in the shop than my wife sends me in. I have no problem with building your designs except they always seem to come out during harvest season. I came home for lunch to find everything ---including the kitchen sink, assembled on the kitchen floor and the latest edition of Countryside stuck in front of me. Can you make this work , honey ? Yes, Dear but I'm going to have a talk with Steve--LOL, just kidding ! It looks great. However, for future reference, I would like to point out that the winter has 4 months of a lot less to do for we farmers. Couldn't we save those great projects for the December issue ? All in fun, Joel

-- Joel Rosen (Joel681@webtv.net), August 15, 2000.

I haven't GOT my new issue yet!! Whine, whine!! I checked the mailbox on my way out to go to work yesterday, hoping I'd have something to read on breaks -- maybe today. Joel, my husband will sympathize with you -- I'm always finding projects for him, too!! Only, I do help with them -- I'm chief planner and measurer, also chief woodworking clamp!! :-)

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), August 15, 2000.

Joel

I have a beautiful wife Tammy, two great kids, a father with great ideas, a sister with a new homestead to remodel and a demanding editor and they all want something done yesterday.

So I threw away the calendar so I don't know when yesterday was.

I have found that over the summer if you don't eat or sleep it frees up a lot of wasted time. Maybe the bears have the right idea sleep through the winter.

I try and enjoy life so this weekend I loaded up the kids and grandpa (Jd) and went over to the river and drowned some worms. Caught some blue gills and a northern and got rained on but we had a great time. That 2 hour break was just what we all needed. Recharged my batteries so I could continue working on a wood fired bake oven I am building. If anyone has ever built one let me know I need all the ideas I can get.

If anyone has built something and would like to send it in to Steve's workshop please let me know, then Joel's wife can have some more stuff to keep him busy.

P.S. Tammy says if I'm out in the shop then I'm not under foot in the house. Do you think she is trying to tell me something?

-- Steve Belanger (csymag@tds.net), August 15, 2000.

I understand, Steve. Sleep or rest IS, something other people get during the summer months. I actually got to go trout fishing once this year also, which was a big improvement over the past two years. I do have a family design for a Corona grain mill which is mounted on the handlebars of an old exercycle that really makes grinding wheat a breeze. I'd love to share it with fellow Countrysiders. Although I helped, the real idea for it came fom my father who found it hard to turn the crank handle as he became older. If anyone is interested, let me know. Take Care !

-- Joel Rosen (Joel681@webtv.net), August 15, 2000.

Joel: Please don't go the 'if anyone is interested route', just send in the article. About once a year I get a call from someone about an article I wrote years ago after they tracked me down through internet white pages. Sometimes have to have them refresh my memory on what the heck they are asking about. Once printed, your information is there for future reference.

-- Ken S. in TN (scharabo@aol.com), August 15, 2000.

Steve, let us know how the peaches work. You were right about it being easy to do. I got our magazine out of the box yesterday, already have all the pieces except the disposal and my wife wanted me to get more info before she will ok it. I was thinking about mounting my jack inverted so that the shaft presses in, this way the handle would always be out of the way. of course in doing that you need a jack with holes in base for mounting and the cross member would need to be removable to allow easy extraction of the jack from the bucket. Also, pouring water through the grinder, will this clean the chopper well enough to keep contamination of future processings from occuring?

-- Jay Blair (jayblair678@yahoo.com), August 15, 2000.

OK Ken, I will submit it to Steve for consideration. We spent an hour shooting different angles of of it for the best possible working view and I will attempt to outline the process tonight. It is really simplistic ! My one delimna is--Do you really want to see a picture of MR Controversy or should I remain faceless ? My wife is much better looking anyway !

-- Joel Rosen (Joel681@webtv.net), August 15, 2000.

Hey Joel, how about a mugshot! Just kidding, but perhaps in keeping with your seditious lifestyle, a skimask or unibomber look might be appropriate, not to mention entertaining.

-- Soni (thomkilroy@hotmail.com), August 17, 2000.

Joel, put a rectangular piece of black cardboard over your eyes and then take the photo! I would love to get info your version of the mill. I have enough wheat to feed Egypt for seven years!

Still no new issue here....counting.....Maybe the good news is that we will get this issue with all the projects to do, IN WINTER!

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), August 17, 2000.

Timing has always been a problem with a reader-written mag like Countryside. Normal mags might be thinking of Christmas in July---but we homesteaders get an idea when were DOING it, and by the time we send it in, with the leads and lags of printing and publishing, its out of date. Example: I canned 7 quarts of tomatoes today and, running them through the Victorio strainer, swore (again) at the way the strainer shifted when I turned the crank, and came loose. I devised a way to clamp the strainer down on the board (another innovation in itself---it clamps onto the divider of a double stainless steel sink) so it doesnt wobble. (I just put some screws into the table-top board.) But if I wrote this today, and the Sept/Oct issue of the mag is already out (thank the newsstand dealers for that screwy timing), it couldnt possibly show up in print until Nov/Dec. And who has tomatoes then? Two lessons: 1. Countryside is not a time oriented magazine. (Shucks, we have articles from 75 years ago that are still timely.) And 2--- aint the internet wunnerful!? We get about 150 messages A DAY on this forum! The problem is that many, or even most, homesteaders still arent wired. I dont know if thats good or bad, but its a serious consideration here. On the third hand, with more than 24000 posts on this forum as of today, an EDITED magazine is a lot easier to handle.

As for the question at hand, grapes and plums dont require the kind of crushing apples do.The units we used to sell in the now-defunct Countryside General Store chopped up the apples, but (a different attachment) merely crushed grapes. But if an in-sink-erator chops up goo going down the drain without clogging, I dont see why it would choke on grapes or plums.

-- Jd (belanger@tds.net), August 19, 2000.

First of all, yes, yes, Joel to the grinder article. I would love to read how to do that one. I mean, Hubby would love to hear how to hook up a grinder. (Besides, it will help me get on that there exercise bike that goes nowhere.) Second, I didn't realize that I was one of only a few on this forum that has seen Joel in person. (I hope that doesn't mean he has to kill me now.)(I remember NOTHING. ) Okay, I promise not to identify you even if they torture me. Jd, it's nice to hear from you on this forum. Glad to hear you are keeping in the thick of things.

-- Colleen (pyramidgreatdanes@erols.com), August 21, 2000.

Re: 8 ton jack. I wouldn't think one would need an 8 ton jack for this. I believe Steve said it was all that he could find locally. We have found a 2 ton jack, and a 4 ton jack, either of which I would think would work fine, unless I'm not thinking clearly (which happens more frequently these days!). Any thoughts: Ok for 2 ton? I think the price is pretty much the same for the 2 or 4. I wonder what else we would use a jack for, and maybe the 4 ton would be better? Help!

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), August 22, 2000.

Anyone that can answer my question about the jack? We are getting ready to pick apples and get started real soon. thx.

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), August 29, 2000.