{"id":1785,"date":"2011-10-31T03:00:50","date_gmt":"2011-10-31T07:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/?p=1785"},"modified":"2011-10-31T03:00:50","modified_gmt":"2011-10-31T07:00:50","slug":"q-and-a-cleaning-the-wood-stove-grain-mills-and-re-canning-peanut-butter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/2011\/10\/31\/q-and-a-cleaning-the-wood-stove-grain-mills-and-re-canning-peanut-butter\/","title":{"rendered":"Q and A: Cleaning the wood stove, grain mills, and re-canning peanut butter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cleaning the wood stove<\/strong><\/p>\n

Was wondering if there is a way to clean out a wood-stove and limit the amount of ash that floats all over my living room? We don’t have an outside clean-out. During the winter months we usually have a light layer of ash all over our living room. This year, was wondering if I could sprinkle anything on the ash or wet it, to limit the amount that floats around?<\/em><\/p>\n

Donna G.<\/em>
\nAlbuquerque, New Mexico<\/em><\/p>\n

Sprinkling doesn’t work because when you shovel it out, the ash flies anyway. You can soak it down, but that isn’t really a good idea for your stove’s durability. What I do is turn on the vacuum and lay the hose outlet over the door. Be sure to open the damper as that helps draw some of the flying ash up the stovepipe\/chimney. Unfortunately, this is one of the problems with wood stoves and we all have to live with it to some degree. The vacuum does help a lot, though. Also, when you shovel out your ash, move very slowly and dump each shovelful very gently. Hurrying just puffs the ash all over the place. — Jackie<\/p>\n

Grain mills<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have a question about grain mills. What type\/brand do you feel is the best? Lehman’s offers mills at all different prices, with the most expensive at around $1200. This one is cast iron. <\/em><\/p>\n

Sherry<\/em>
\nPaulding, Ohio<\/em><\/p>\n

There is no “best.” It depends on your situation. For daily family use, I like the Country Living mill. It is a larger hand mill. But it is relatively expensive. I have an old, small, but efficient hand mill, the Back to Basics (now Victorio) mill. I bought mine on sale for less than $50 at Emergency Essentials. I’m also thinking about a decent electric mill, with my old mill and a Country Living mill for back-up if TSHTF. My wrists are getting bad, and although my small mill and the Country Living mill with a handle extension both grind quite easily, I may go electric on this one. Generally, you get what you pay for…within reason! If you only grind a bit of flour every few weeks, I sure wouldn’t advise paying $1,200 for a mill. — Jackie<\/p>\n

Re-canning peanut butter<\/strong><\/p>\n

My apologies if this has been discussed before, but is there any way to safely “re-can” a large container (commercial size) of peanut butter? I know making your own peanut butter is not very difficult, but I see the question brought from time to time. I seem to recall seeing that it could be waterbath canned for 60 minutes in some much older canning books…but I’m very leery of doing that.<\/em><\/p>\n

James Jackson<\/em>
\nKnoxville, Tennessee<\/em><\/p>\n

I’m sorry, but as peanut butter is such a dense product, it isn’t advisable to can it, whether canning freshly made or store-bought. Dense foods create a problem in that it is possible that the interior of the jars don’t heat up thoroughly for long enough during processing for safety. — Jackie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cleaning the wood stove Was wondering if there is a way to clean out a wood-stove and limit the amount of ash that floats all over my living room? We don’t have an outside clean-out. During the winter months we usually have a light layer of ash all over our living room. This year, was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1785"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1785\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}