The Winter brew is bottled

The christmas ale is bottled and just about ready to drink. I reuse old beer bottles time and again, it's such a shame that we don't have a deposit and return system on these bottles (like we did with corona bottles when I was young) but I do my best to help out, and these bottles seem to be reusable almost indefinately. Unfortunately I didn't come up with a better name than winter brew. Any suggestions?

Once bottled I add a half teaspoon of sugar to prime (soft dark brown sugar for this batch) and then leave by the stove for a couple of days before storing in the cool (outside the back door). My experience is that the beer improves as it conditions and in the cool weather this can take a few weeks, so I shall be sampling the progress. Normally it's just about perfect by the time I get around to the last bottle.

Ooops, that's torn it!

In old landrover land nothing is ever quite as simple as you'd hope. The suspension swap on Georgina my SWB series IIA landrover went very well at the back. Too well really. Things took a turn for the worse at the front. I knew that there were some welds to check but I wasn't expecting to find a cracked chassis. Oooops.




You can see the crack running across the bottom of the chassis leg and then straight up the box section almost to the top. Pretty soon it would just have been the spring holding it together, just as well I retired her from hard work on the commons when I bought Peter the tractor earlier this year (yes all my vehicles do have names).



I managed to fill and weld the crack up the side of the box section but the crack across the bottom of the leg stubbornly refused to go away. After a few hours of futile attempts I began to realise that I would not be happy with the repair even if I succeeded in patching it up.


So time for plan B. Giving up isn't an option as Georgina is almost a part of the family. There was talk of a replacement chassis, but I'd prefer to keep as much of her as I can, so the other possibility is to put her on the transplant list and look for a donor vehicle with a sound leg to cut off. By next week! As luck would have it, I just happen to know where there might be one, very close to home. Just outside the front door in fact......don't miss the next exciting episode of 'Zen and the art of Landrover Maintenance'.......

One car in, one car out.....and round we go again

It's been all go on the car front for the last couple of weeks. John and Richard have made a lot of progress with Brenda the mini. The mechanical work around the engine is now finished and John drove her out of the shed.



Before putting her back into her slot in the corner of the yard John offered up the replacement wing and front panel to check the fit which looked pretty good to me - but then just about anything looks a good fit from a landrover perspective.


Since John can't work on the mini over Christmas we decided to move my short wheelbase soft top landrover into the shed. She (we call her Georgina) has worked hard for the last couple of years on the commons and I decided to reward her with a new set of parabolic springs and gas shocks before putting here in for the MOT.

We got her in to the shed just in time for the snow to start falling.

Luckily, Vickie the range rover passed her test on the second attempt (after some frantic work on the emissions and the rear seat belts) just in the nick of time with the current big freeze, though paying for the road tax was almost as big a shock as filling the tank with petrol!

It's getting colder

It's been getting ever colder down South in West Sussex. The thermometer in the shed stayed resolutely at -1 degrees today and made it difficult to do any turning. After chopping some firewood I took my hooks and retired to in front of the stove to sharpen them. Very unusually for down here the snow is still lying. The short track on the other side of our road I use to get to the workshop at the bottom of the neighbours garden has become an ice rink. A very pretty one mind you.

Up on the commons the snow is still crisp, if not deep and even.

The low sun angle through the tangle of trees makes for a very eerie light.

Even the Robins are feeling the cold. Today we were almost mobbed by Robin's and I suspect that they are staying close to see what food we turn up as we walk through the snow and ice. Very sensible too.

One of the reasons for being up on the commons in the snow was to help friends cut Scots Pine trees to use as christmas trees. A rare occasion when you can cut down a tree and help save the environment. This part of Stanley common is permanently growing pine trees which need to be cut to keep them from smothering the heathland. Trees store carbon while they are alive, but release it swiftly when they fall or are felled. The heathland lays down peat which helps to lock carbon into the soil, storing it not just for decades, but potentially for thousands of years.

The birch, the Commons and the Winter Solstice. Enough said I think.

A game of bowls...and hooks

The current inclement weather has been making it hard to get much polelathe turning done. I have a lot of coppicing and tree work to do on the commons as well but with snow lying on the ground that's impractical for a few days. But with the stove in place I can at least get some turning done. The stove has now burnt a lot of the rubbish that used to lie around and it almost looks like a workshop at last.




The two new bowl hooks forged from the broken ends of the Range Rover springs have been an improvement on my previous hooks even though the limited heat of my furnace and tools has made them a bit uneven. The small hook (foreground) works really well for undercutting the bowl core, the bigger hook is quite unevenly bent but still works well, through differently on each side! At the back for comparison is one of the previous hooks I made, a bit too thin and curved too far but it works very well as a finishing tool.



One of the first trials with the new hooks on a birch bowl.



Photo quality is not all it could be but I had to turn with one hand and hold the camera with the other hand until I find a better way to mount the camera in the right place.


It's a bit early to tell yet, but the new hooks seem to have decreased the time it takes for me to turn a bowl, and I can hope that practice will make perfect.

You can't have too many stoves!

With the weather taking a turn for the worse working in the open fronted cart shed I use has become distinctly chilly, not to say numbing. The thermometer stubbornly refused to rise above zero all day earlier in the week and with a dose of snow promised it's time for operation 'instant stove'.




I've had an old stainless steel nitrokeg beer barrel saved for just this purpose but not got around to making a stove from it. Fixing a stove pipe on needed a bit more scavenging but I found an old ford transit propshaft and cut the ends off to fit into the existing opening in the top of the keg. Then a length of old stainless steel flue liner to take the smoke up and out of the shed. I apologise if this is beginning to sound a bit like scrapheap challenge but needs must...



The barrel just needs an opening cut to turn it into a stove, then light up and enjoy. This is about as basic as it gets and I intend to replace the cut out section on hinges as a door, but refinements will have to wait and at the moment it does the job.


Project 'Instant Stove' was accomplished just in time as the first snow has started falling outside the shed. Another benefit is that the stove is already starting to tidy my greenwood work area as it devours the mess of bits and offcuts lying around.

A Christmas Ale

A few years ago I learnt to make beer using the raw ingredients, that is barley, hops, yeast and water. Home brewing has a terrible reputation, all sweaters, beards, beerguts and beerkits, like folk music and morris dancing, something best avoided, in smart society at least. But it's been a revelation for me a bit like discovering cooking or more exactly baking with fresh quality ingredients instead of making ready meals or buying sliced loaves.

One of the most interesting parts of this for me has been learning more about the ingredients I use, where they come from and how to vary the recipes to make different types of beer. I like to make my own version of a winter ale before Christmas and it's an opportunity to try another recipe and sample some more raw ingredients.

Unusually for me I've been organised and while were on holiday recently in Norfolk I visited the farm shop at Branthill farm. It's one of my favourite farm shops, and as Branthill is a malting barley farm it features a massive range of local beers which use it's barley. You can find the online shop here - The Real Ale Shop.



The base ingredient of beer is barley which supplies the sugar that is fermented to make alcohol. The malted barley from Branthill is a pale malt variety called Maris Otter, grown particularly for brewing cask conditioned ales. Before we can use it for brewing the stored grains must be malted, a critical process in which the starch is converted to sugar. The traditional malting floors in England have almost disappeared, there are only two left one of which is the Warminster maltings. This maltings almost closed in the 1990's but has now discovered a new lease of life supplying all types of malt and organic malt to independant breweries. I buy their malted barley because I choose to support their independant and local business in a world largely dominated by global breweries in which the source and quality of the ingredients is completely lost.

For this brew I decided to base it on a recipe which makes a strong ale very similar to Gales HSB (Hordean Special Bitter), a local brew which is sadly no longer brewed locally. To the pale malt (4kg in this recipe) is added a variety of other malts, in this case a small amount of crystal malt (125g) which adds body and flavour typical of real ales and for this recipe a very small amount of wheat malt (60g). These ingredients add the distinctive and complex flavours which give English beers such a wide range of flavours. Very like blending coffees and teas the darker roasts give increasingly strong flavour and darker colours to the brew.



The grains are heated in a tub to 66 degrees C and left to cook for 90 minutes. This process is called mashing and the temperature is quite critical to the best extraction of the sugars from the grains. The resulting sugary liquid, or wort, is then poured off the grains.



But there is still a lot of sugar left on the grains and we don't want to waste this as it's full of flavour which will contribute to the character of the beer in a way that just adding a bag of processed sugar can't do. So the remaining grains are sparged using a fine spray of almost boiling water (the water is known as liquor in the brewing process) until we've extracted all of the sugar and flavour.

At this stage I have made a malt extract, but one that is designed to have the flavours and colours I want for the final beer. Before I can ferment it I need to add the remaining ingredients, the hops and sugars and then boil for a further 90minutes.



For this recipe I used East Kent Goldings (60g) and Brambling cross (30g). The hops are another whole subject in their own right, again I can choose where I buy my hops, and I use entirely English hops in my brews. These days a lot of hops are imported so I see buying English hops as a way to support the remaining English hop farms.

As this is going to be a winter beer the recipe includes molasses (100g) and soft dark brown sugar (450g) which will give it a rich flavour and colour.

After boiling the wort is poured off again into a fermenting bin and left to cool overnight until the yeast is added the next morning. After 3 or 4 days the fermenting slows and the beer is racked (or poured into a storage container) to rest before I bottle it. In a few more days it will be ready to bottle and then after a week or so to condition in the bottle it's ready to drink.

By choosing my own ingredients and paying for the highest quality my beer is more expensive than the typical home brew kits, but even so this brew has cost me less than 20 pounds for 40pints. But it's not cheap beer that's driven me to rediscover brewing my beer it's the difference between making your own bread by hand, instead of using a bread maker - or buying a sliced loaf, the quality and consistency of the result is superb, and I know exactly what is in it and where it came from.

Putting it all together the recipe is

4kg crushed pale malted barley
125g crushed crystal malted barley
60g malted wheat
25 litres of water for bitter brewing
60g East Kent Goldings hops
30g Brambling cross hops
100g molasses
450g soft dark brown sugar

and the OG (original gravity) just before adding the yeast was a shade over 1050

The beer is resting at the moment and in another couple of days I will bottle it - to be ready just in time for Christmas.

I'm hooked

I've been toying with trying to do some basic finishing of my hook tools without having to borrow a friend's forge. As it seems to be metal working month for me, I decided on some light relief and to try and finish the second hook tool I was making at the Weald and Downland forge recently.




To do this I created a small chamber with fire bricks and used a propane torch connected to an old cylinder I inherited. I suppose I ought to say something about 'Don't try this at home kids.......' but then I'm not at home, I'm down the shed!

The hook tool is one that I wasn't able to even hot file when I was at the forge so I used a bench grinder to put the bevel on the end of the tool.



The cylinder seems to be a little low on gas but the furnace worked well enough to get the end upto beyond cherry red. Hard to photograph and do at the same time with limited time to work the metal.



Without an anvil I am reduced to using a big pair of pliers to twist the hook into shape and with a little persuading from a hammer on the side of a vice I managed to create something approximating the shape I needed before the gas gave out.

I only gave the tip a very slight temper. The spring steel had already snapped in service and remained hard even when annealed so it seems to be very high in carbon.



Pressed immediately into use the half sharpened tool seems to be quite useable and allowed me to make one bowl without it dulling enough to need more sharpening.

For a first attempt the propane fired furnace worked quite well for finishing small items like the bowl hooks, as soon as I get another cylinder of gas, and maybe a newer torch I will be giving it another try. It seems like a good way to allow refinishing and repairing of broken hooks, and it has the bonus of providing some heat in the shed at the same time.

One car out, one car in...and so it goes on...

I'm in a dilemma. I wanted this blog to be about my greenwood working and other crafts with occasional interjections from my other activities like repairing and restoring old English cars, particularly my Landrovers, which I rely on a lot in my work as a woodsman and woodturner.

But I also want the blog to reflect what I am actually doing and for the last few weeks it feels as if I have suddenly and unwelcomely had a new full time job - restoring the old(ish) Range Rover we call Vicky. I have reservations writing about her, she doesn't really fit in the woods and she's the youngster in my collection, a mere 22 years old, whereas the landrover I use on a daily basis will be 50 next year. Yes I am planning a party!

I knew that taking on a middle aged Range Rover was always going to mean learning a lot, I just didn't realise that I would need to learn it all in one go. I'm beginning to wonder why I bought it? Ooops, except of course I didn't buy it - which explains a lot as I am always a sucker for an old Landrover looking for a home.



In an attempt to get Vicky out of the shed after lurking there for a year, I've been working more or less full time on it since getting back from Norfolk. Things have not gone too well with plenty of setbacks, the amount of work that's gone into it is frightening and I shudder to think of the cost. But I finally managed to get it out of the shed which was empty for just long enough to sweep the leaves, dust and debris from the floor before....



the space was filled by Brenda, John's mini (Carol's to be exact), which found itself in Haslemere recently and needing some work - as a result of her advances being violently rejected by a Volkswagon.

So I apologise if the wood content of this blog is temporarily reduced. It will be restored before long as there is a limit to how long I can afford to work on the cars - and the pressure to complete various woody projects is building fast.

Nice little chainsaw

An old friend brought his chainsaw round to see me on Tuesday.



I was really pleased that he came. Not just because he brought a pristine Husqvarna 42 chainsaw, but also because some 29 years ago we were at school together in Somerset. Until we met by chance at the Weald and Downland blacksmith's show a couple of year ago I had no idea that Jules is a talented local blacksmith.

We are lucky enough to still have a number of blacksmiths in the area. Alright so I don't know the word for a group of blacksmiths, does coven seems appropriate for people that gather around a fire in dark rooms? Any better answers please on a postcard or email. Anyway, Jules currently works from his forge, a brick outhouse at his home in Dunsfold, or he will do when he's finished rebuilding it.



Jules bought the saw at least 10 years ago with the aim of providing his own firewood, but without training he was reluctant to use it. Very interesting to see this saw in pristine condition as I have only seen old and worn ones before (I have a Husqvarna 45 which has seen better days).

Even more interesting was attempting to start a saw which has not been used in at least 10 years. It was a little too much to hope it would start without some help. No sign of petrol getting through to the cylinder. Luckily Richard was around and after a little discussion we tried WD40 to aid the compression and then a tea spoon of petrol to help prime the carb - a few more pulls and it showed signs of life, and very soon it started. After a minute or so it was running very well - better than my Stihl!



There was a break in the weather so after some basic maintenance and cold starting instructions Jules and I headed onto the commons to test the saw on some firewood. At the same time Jules helped me with some voluntary work on the commons as we cleared a nasty fallen birch adjacent to a busy road.




The gap in the gale gave us just enough time to grab his first load of firewood and this photo is just to prove that I do have one Landrover on the road at the moment! Though I am down to the last one, any more problems and I will have to use the tractor to get to Sainsbury's.