So You Want to Be A Blacksmith
“how to get started in blacksmithing.”
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“Complete video directions for making tofu at home.”
How to make halloumi cheese at home, simply presented by Guru Ted in New Zealand.
I had no idea it could be so easy — and inexpensive — to make.
Here’s halloumi being produced on a larger scale in the traditional manner in Lysi, Cyprus. Notice how they use baskets as molds.
These videos were eye-openers for me, because I hadn’t really thought of clay in the soil as anything other than a nuisance and certainly hadn’t thought of using it for anything.
Here we learn how to find and clean clay found in a river bank. There seem to be two methods of cleaning ‘natural’ clay. One is to dry the clay and then powder it and put it through a sifter screen, the other is to put a slurry of wet clay through a sieve. I haven’t tried either, though the wet method looks easier.
“Is mixing your clay economical. I hear arguments on both sides. But I think it’s important that you know how.”
Here wildmudpottery finds clay in a trench dug for a pipeline and uses the second wet method of cleaning the clay.
Portland, Oregon resident, Claudio Lucero shows us her work as a cheesemaker and how it connects with local dairy farmers.
Urban Cheesecraft from Etsy on Vimeo.
Larry Vienneau shows us how to make oak gall ink using the more readily available acorns. This is a dark-brown-black ink. He writes:
“Iron Oak Gall Ink was used for hundreds of years until modern archival inks arrived. This is the same ink used to sign the Declaration of Independence and to write most Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts.”
He notes that a similar ink was also used as a dye by Native Americans.
What you’ll need: clean whole acorns (no other debris), vinegar, gum arabic (or honey, which he says works just as well as a binder), a slow cooker, a wide-mouthed funnel, cheesecloth, a strainer, iron (rusty nails, steel wool, etc. or iron tablets from the health food store), a preservative (he uses solvent alcohol).
It can take up to a week to make the ink.
The black walnut has a long history of being used to produce a dark stain that can be used as ink, leather making dye, wood and grass stain and textile dye. It’s lightfast, colorfast and doesn’t respond to most solvents, so difficult to get out in general. Scrapbookers now also use walnut ink to give paper an antique look.
To make the ink you will need unhulled walnuts, water, a pot (it helps if it is rusty cast iron as the iron deepens the color), a sieve or cheesecloth and a stirrer. Some people also add rusty metal to the mix to darken the color and vinegar to help preserve the liquid.
Here is Annamarie Malik making a large batch of ink:
She sells bottles of walnut ink from her website http://annamalik.com/
The Real Know How 