Category Archives: Miscellaneous

And here is the “catch all” category for stuff that doesn’t have its own.

KEGERATOR!!!!

by Woodsbum

This post isn’t very backwoods, gun, or gardening related. It is however AWESOME!!!!!

After many years of putting it off, I finally did the work needed to get my kegerator up and running. As you can see from the picture below, I will have two CO2 beers and one nitrogen beer on tap. There are a few pieces that I am still waiting on to arrive, but for the most part I am done with all the hard part.

The beauty!!

The refrigerator was given to me by my brother a while ago. It ended up quitting me for about a year. I then REALLY examined the wiring and found that all I needed to do was tighten a connection. Been working ever since. There was already one hole drilled and a pretty worn/nasty spout installed. He also ran a CO2 hose through the side, but was down in the corner so that kegs could very easily pinch a line. I did a few modifications to make it my own (read as BETTER!!!).

CO2 lines installed

As you can see, I installed a manifold for my CO2 so that I could run two beers off the one tank. I color coded it so that it would look nice as well. The second hole you see is for my nitrogen lines. That, my CO2 regulator, sankey coupler, and spout for my Guinness faucet should be here today. It was tough, but I drilled the hole just barely big enough for the hose. I did this so that it would stay nice and tight without me having to squirt expandable foam all over the place. I also built a floor for the kegs to sit on out of some scrap wood I had laying around. This has helped keep things in place as well as protecting the bottom of the refrigerator from the kegs as I swap them out.

Ball locks on gas lines.

Another thing I did was for ease of swapping couplers and kegs around as I changed out beer. If you look, I put ball lock keg fittings on all my gas lines and I put sankey to ball lock quick disconnect conversion kits on my couplers. By doing this, I can easily swap out between American and European sankey couplers, “M” couplers, or just use the ball lock system for homebrew in corny kegs. It gives me much more freedom in my beer choices. I also did this for my nitrogen system so I can swap in the same fashion. This means that I can use my Guinness coupler (U coupler), sankeys or hook up a corny there as well.

Beer lines to my shanks.

I did the same thing with the beer lines. You can see the ball lock connectors in the door tray. I put the Guinness between the two Perlick faucets so that it wasn’t as odd if I was not running all three beers at once for whatever reason.

To drill the holes, I used a 1/2 inch hole saw. They are about $10 from Home Depot for a good one. It really wasn’t that big of a chore and it really came out well.

The faucet handle situation does need to be rethought a bit. The actual tall, bar style handles I have don’t fit correctly where I have the spout. The handles hit the door and thus don’t close out the faucet properly. This is a serious problem and I will have to do some thinking about how to fix this.

Since I already have my tanks and such, I will end up building myself a tank stand/holder to keep them safe. My CO2 tank actually was originally a soda machine tank, but I reallocated it for a while to do some welding. It already has food style CO2 in it, so hopefully my welds don’t get sick since it wasn’t a welding mix.

CO2 tank

Like I mentioned, my regulator for this will be here today. My nitrogen tank will be ready today as well so I can hook up the lines and this bad boy!

Nitrogen regulator

I was a little surprised by the differences between CO2 and nitrogen regulators. Notice how the second gauge goes all the way to 60 PSI? Guinness for instance should be run around the 30 mark from what I have been told and have read. It will be a fun experience to “test it out and drink the practice runs.”

Since I have not decided what to do for a drip tray yet, I will have to also do some thinking there. I have been considering re-purposing something completely obnoxious for the task, but can’t find anything worthy as of yet. There is no doubt that I will think of something, however. I might just weld up something out of steel. We will have to see.

If you decide to do your own kegerator, do yourself a favor and do it right from the beginning. I have seen many that were done in a haphazard fashion that were just given away a while later because it didn’t fit the person’s needs. Spend the money for the right parts and just get it done.

Happy beer drinking!!!!

Food Dehydration – NewB Guide

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by Woodsbum

To make life easier in my family, I finally decided to get a food dehydrator. “How would this make your life easier?” many will ask. It is quite simple: jerky……..

My family LOVES jerky and “snack” type foods. Not necessarily junk food, but snack type items. We love veggies that are cut up and ready to eat. Fruits that are cut up and easy to pop in your mouth. Popcorn is also a favorite. The absolute, top shelf snacking chow at our house happens to be beef jerky.

For those that are not familiar with the “jerky” world, it can become quite an expensive habit to have. A small package of Jack Links (our household favorite brand prior to the homemade stuff I did over the weekend) can run $10 for only a few minutes of taste bud Utopia. Couple that with the expensive dehydrated fruit that we get on occasion and a hefty bite can be taken out of your bank account. What we did was purchase this:

Excalibur Food Dehydrator

In only a few minutes of work and several hours of wait time, I ended up with some INCREDIBLE beef jerky. Here is how I did it:

Purchased a steak block from Cash and Carry, a local restaurant supplier that is open to the public. I got round steak for around $3 a pound.
I cut the meat into thin slices. Mine ended up between 1/8 inch to 1/4 inch depending on how steady my hand was.
The meat was marinated in Frank’s Red Hot buffalo sauce, soy sauce, lemon juice, liquid smoke, black and red pepper, garlic, and Tabasco sauce for 24 hours.
We set the device’s temperature setting to “Jerky” and the timer to 8 hours. about 6 hours into the process, we flipped the jerky over.

That was it. It came out delicious and we now have a great way to keep jerky in the house for a mere fraction of the price.

We also did some apples and mango. To help with the prep work and hassle, I picked up these from Amazon:

Apple Core and Peeler

Mango Pitter

These things made quick work of the fruit and allowed me to get it prepared and into the dehydrator in a matter of only 5-10 minutes. It was SO quick and simple that even my daughter was interested in at least watching, but not helping. This is definitely a step up from being completely ignored while doing things in the kitchen, so it must be really simple.

Once I got the fruit prepped and onto the trays, I sprinkled cinnamon and sugar on the apples. The mango was skinned, but left alone to dry. The drying process took about 10 hours for a good, complete dry. The product was definitely worth the wait, however. Over the course of 2 days the late teen/early 20 year olds in my home ate a full 1 gallon Ziploc freezer bag full of dried fruit. It was amazing and so very simple.

When I get home tonight, I will be prepping some more jerky and drying out some more fruit. As time goes on and I experiment with even more recipes, I will post them. The best combo for fruit I have found thus far involves a medium to heavy sprinkling of cinnamon and sugar mix. I will try more things, however and report back. Later on, I also plan on making some of my own backpacking soups from veggies and meat. We will have to see how it goes, but I have some faith in the process after having done the fruit and beef jerky this last weekend.

If you have any interest in getting into the whole dehydrating thing, I highly suggest you pick yourself up one of the Excalibur systems from the very beginning. The ease and simple design, the timer, and the even drying of the food really make it worth the money. This is definitely a recommended product. Also, let me know if you come up with some good recipes along the way. We get good, inexpensive produce so I can afford to play a bit.

Happy dehydrating!!!!

S&W M&P 9mm – Grip Tape

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I’m relatively new to the pistol shooting world and I had some trouble getting a proper grip on my SW MP 9. I used a suggestion by Chris Costa from the Magpul Dynamics Art of the Dynamic Handgun dvd and put some Black Magic grip tape on the gun.

I put some tape on the left and right hand side of the grip and a piece underneath the trigger guard. This really helped me get a proper grip on the gun and made it fell more secure in my hand. After adding the tape I went to the range and refined the placement of the tape and I’m currently using the grip tape placement below.

The grip tape was an inexpensive way to improve the feel of the handgun. I looked into stippling but I was not comfortable with modifying the handgun in that way. Here is a great link on how to stipple a firearm using a soldering iron.

Target at Fifty Feet

Elzetta Flashlight Mount for Mossberg 590

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I picked up an Elzetta Tactical Flashlight Mount for my Mossberg 590 last week since I heard great things about the company. The mount is very solid and holds my flashlight in a death grip. There is no way that the flashlight is going to come off the gun short of taking a hammer to it. I also added a Mossberg Speed Feed stock and a Tac Star Side Saddle to the gun. I wanted to get everything ready for a tactical shotgun course I’m taking in three weeks. I’ll have more about the training and the gear that I brought to it after the course is completed. In the mean time here are a bunch of pics of the gun and the accessories. As a side note I greased all the internal parts with white lithium grease and the gun action is as smooth as silk.

Condor Phantom Jacket

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by Woodsbum

This is going to be more of a review than anything else. Being a bit of a gear freak, I usually have bad things to say about clothing items I buy not being <this> or not having enough <that>. Most non clothing items I get I end up falling in love with. Clothing, not so much. Every once in a while, I do run across items that I REALLY do love and endorse. Enter the Condor Phantom…….

Condor Phantom

This soft shell jacket is truly one of the best investments I have made. It is a waterproof, soft shell jacket with literally pockets everywhere. Each sleeve has a pocket. There is a slanted chest pocket. Hand warmer front pockets with a pocket inside each one of those for an iPod or something. Inside there are two pockets that are made from the two lower hand warmer pockets that fit compact pistols very well for concealed carry. The back portion of those also have pockets and a pen loop. See that I said? Pockets EVERYWHERE!!!!

It also has Velcro on the sleeves for morale patches.

Condor Velcro and AdventureSworn patch.

My first real outing with this jacket was in sub 30 degree weather with blowing snow and sleet. We took a several mile hike along a ridge to go have some bacon sandwiches with my son. Whereas he ended up getting a bit cold and wet, the only issue I had was getting a bit warm with the physical exercise. This called for me to open the arm pit ventilation zippers for the entire trip.

Snowy trip with my Condor Phantom

On another outing I wore it and even ended up taking an afternoon nap while under the cover of poncho I put up to keep the rain off me. The temperature during this outing was down into the 20s and I was not moving. Yes, the wetness on the rocks is ice and it was actually raining-ish at the time. For those in Western Washington, you know this weather quite intimately while in the mountains.

Catching a nap

The reason I put these pictures up was to show you how well this jacket breaths and allows you to keep a constant body temperature in frosty temperatures even without moving. It truly is a great product.

I have had this coat for about 3 months thus far. It has been put through its paces in the mountains (3 out of 4 weekends on average), in town (daily wear), and in the heavy brush of the lower lands of Western Washington (on off weekends). It has held up without showing even the slightest wear or show of wear. It also works as my conceal carry coat where I just put my M&P Shield right inside a pocket without even a holster. There are enough pockets that I also use it to carry all my crap around rather than grabbing a rucksack about half the time.

If you are in the market for a soft shell, waterproof jacket that will keep you warm with enough pockets to make a kangaroo jealous I suggest this jacket. It is well worth the money and the look.

As another testimonial to how nice it is, GunGuy got himself one after he saw mine.

Got get yourself one!!!!