Barncast 38 -- Eating locally through an Indiana winter

What do you guys do for milk over the winter? Do you freeze milk (can you freeze goats milk?) or do you buy regular cows milk? India

ok - I just got to that bit on the 'cast :0) India

Jerusalem artichokes tend to be referred to as 'fartichokes' in our household - soup is great, but...

Note on Freezers: The most important considerations are 1) getting to a temperature of zero degrees Fahrenheit or lower; and 2) NOT frost-free. The frost-free function allows the temperature inside the freezer to rise significantly so that the frost will melt or ablate (go from a frozen state to a gas state without going through the liquid phase). The temperature fluctuations are what cause "freezer burn".

Regarding the loss of electricity: For about $2000 you can get power interruption generator that switches on when you lose power. This provides generally enough power to keep your fridges, freezers, furnace pumps or blowers, and computers operating, but not enough for central A/C. However, if you keep your deep freeze full, and you have a decent seal on the door and do not open the freezer, the food will stay frozen for at least 3 days. Here in Bloomington, we usually have about 24 hours of power outage a year, spread out over 3 or 4 occurrances, so it is more of a nuisance rather than a "problem".

I sympathize with your feelings about your neighbor's dog. As a dog lover, too, I would feel bad about if the animal were put down, but then, I don't have much respect for pit bulls, and so I wouldn't feel guilty about it. Idea: put the segment of this podcast on your iPod and let your neighbor listen to it, if he wants. Your kind words about him and your internal stuggles with your dilemma were moving for me.

Pit bulls should NOT be people agressive. Dog agressive yes as they were bred to fight other dogs. My friend has staffordshire bull terriers who would welcome the burgular in, ask them if they want a drink and show where the jewelry is! I regularly are bruised by their dogs jumping on me trying to scramble up to giving me kisses.

You guys did very well in a touchy situation.

Hi Ellen, John G, Richard, and India!

Richard: If you cook JA's right you can convert most of the inulin to starch and that will solve a lot of your problem. :) If you parboil the JA's first (5min), then discard the water before adding them your soup you might fart less.

Thanks your additions John G. $2000 isn't really cost effective. You can find the newer small and quiet honda generators for a lot less. Not sure if they have enough ompf to start a compressor motor though.

-Andrew

Hi John G.,

You said, in part: "The frost-free function allows the temperature inside the freezer to rise significantly so that the frost will melt or ablate (go from a frozen state to a gas state without going through the liquid phase)."

You may have meant "sublimate" instead of "ablate".

Here's me trying a link again:

Frozen water sublimes if the dew point is lower than the temperature. Dew point depends on humidity.

A frost free freezer will work, if we assume that the package is really sealed. It may have to withstand a bit of vapor pressure.

Best, Tom

Nuts. The link didn't work this time either. Here's another shot, then I'm off. http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/watercyclesublimation.html