I am fairly confident that C. Botulinum contamination comes primarily from garlic in oil/garlic oil that is left at room temperature. When stored in the refrigerator, the growth of those spores into toxins is far less likely and the shelf life is dramatically extended. The FDA has drafted guideline...

Anyways, when you read a ratio, in most cases it refers to weight. Sometimes you read recipes that do ratio by volume, but it is not the most accurate way of cooking. I completely agree with you about weighing as opposed to measuring by volume. In my kitchen everything is done with metric scales .....

I just picked up the book 'Home Production of Quality Meats & Sausages' ... been reading it non-stop. I'm already up to page 8. :mrgreen: At the bottom of the page 8 there are the ratios for stuff used in emulsions. "... 5 parts water, 5 parts fat, 1 part soya isolate." I think of water as measured ...

It has always been my understanding that The US house of representatives passes bills that the Senate considers and may approve or modify. After both houses agree the bill is presented to the President for his signature. Then it becomes law. It used to work that way. Now we have a President that wa...

Oxide, Do you find that your herbs have more or less flavor depending on when you harvest them? I picked sage leaves this summer for some flat bread and they were very good but later in the fall some that I picked and dried were quite bland. Yes, I experienced the exact same thing. Sage was actuall...

Jerbear, The trout x tomato absurdity is typical hyperbole in arguments concerning almost any changes in the status quo. ... [/b] June 16, 2011 Congress Bans FDA from Approving Genetically Modified `Franken` Salmon The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a law that would effectively block the ...

From memory, there are a whole bunch of plants that fit into the family of herbs used as sage. Sage(s) are mints. Rubbed sage is the leaf, only. Powdered sage contains stems. Chopped sage should be leaf but may have pieces of stems. By weight they are all pretty much the same. By volume powdered sam...

I live in Victoria BC, on Vancouver Island. I can't find rubbed sage locally. Any suggestions? Thanks, Bert, Hi Bert. Rubbed sage is a dried sage leaf that is rubbed between the palms of your hands. It makes you hands smell good! :mrgreen: I believe it blows back to olden times when herbs were hung...

For my tastes, I found these to be plenty hot, but some folks REALLY take it to the next level. The hot paprika would certainly do that and/or using ghost pepper or habenero hot sauce in place of tabasco would accomplish this as well. Thanks for looking! -Kevin I want you to know I experienced acid...

The easist way to demonstrate any problems with GMO cereal grain would be to feed it to several generations of mice and see if they started coming out with two tails or some other detectable changes. A test of that sort would only take a couple of years. Supposedly that is where we are at now ... m...

Getting the new camera figured out now. The Fujifilm Finepix S2940 is a nice camera. Does this replace your Sony DSC-W350? Fujifilm makes good stuff. Bought it at Walmat, did ya? Your camera is running software V1.0. Exif data. :mrgreen: Sometimes it is not a bad idea to strip Exif data when postin...

I think this is the right place to post this ... GMO -- genetically modified organisms. Lately I have been making a conscience effort to avoid GMO, been buying 'organic' not that I feel the need for organic but the definition of organic includes not being GMO. The more I learn about it, the more I a...

I wouldn't use a galvanized piece to hang sausage nor would I use galvanized hooks for meat. I think all of the meat hooks I have seen were tin plated never zinc. Just plain bare wood is the best choice for hanging the sausage. I would not use either galvanized or wood to hang meat products ... sta...

Oxide, You have to melt the zinc before you can start to get any vapor and that is somewhere north of 1000 degrees F. You probably wouldn't eat anything any where near that fire. Now that isn't to say that using a galvanized bucket for food handling is a good idea. When zinc burns the flame is a ye...

All that you need for a smoker except the caedboard box. Image Image Maybe someone that actually knows can set me straight -- I always avoid galvanized anything around heat, especially fire. I don't know when or why but somewhere along the way I got it into my head that was a potential source for t...