[Artemisia] A New Discussion - SCA Skills in a Modern Plague

[Richard Samul]

Wild yeast spores are present everywhere. One merely needs to provide  
a suitable medium and enough time, and they will colonize and start  
doing their thing on their own. The trick is to keep them alive once  
you get a culture started, cultivate them, and get them to do your  
bidding.

Lard is easy, but not very intuitive. After rendering the pork, you're  
left with the melted fat. From there, it's a matter of skimming off  
the stuff that floats to the top and the bits that sink to the bottom.  
Then comes the "washing" - basically, you melt the cleaned fat (not to  
boiling, just to melt) and mix in an equal amount of water. All the  
stuff that gives the pork fat it's flavor and other unsavory qualities  
is soluble in not only the fat, but the water as well. So, basically  
what you have is a reduction by half, every time you do this - decant  
the water (or peel off the fat once it sets), and repeat. Eventually,  
you'll get to a fraction of solubles that is so low, it's non-existent  
for all practical purposes. It's at that point that you have achieved  
lard.

Charcoal is basically cooked wood. Using a heat source, you indirectly  
heat wood to vaporize the water and volatile compounds and drive them  
off. Once that's accomplished, you shut down the fire by starving it  
and the newly created charcoal of oxygen. Once everything cools, you  
open up the kiln, and you have charcoal.

-- 
Earc

Good gods, please don't tell me that the "wealth of useless  
information" I have in my head isn't actually useless.