Besides homebrewing, what stuff do you like to produce from scratch?

So I have been thinking about other things that I would like to make from scratch. I was thinking about starting to make my own bread and saving yeast cultures for that, I also want to start using my mash to produce items such as mustards and ingredients for my bread or rubs. I am going to start buying green coffee beans to roast as well. What things do you like to homemake?

BootstrapBill said:

So I have been thinking about other things that I would like to make from scratch. I was thinking about starting to make my own bread and saving yeast cultures for that, I also want to start using my mash to produce items such as mustards and ingredients for my bread or rubs. I am going to start buying green coffee beans to roast as well. What things do you like to homemake?

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Toffee. Instead of store bought xmas presents, I gift homebrew for the X and toffee for the Y.

Home speakers. Buy the raw drivers, put together the crossovers, build the enclosures, etc... Except for beer brewing stole me away from that.

Music.

All the tomatos and chilis and stuff from my garden. Pickled chilis from my garden. I load my own rounds, work on my own vehicles...
I also made 2 beautiful daughters from scratch. My wife and ex had a hand in those though.

MaddBaggins said:

All the tomatos and chilis and stuff from my garden. Pickled chilis from my garden. I load my own rounds, work on my own vehicles...
I also made 2 beautiful daughters from scratch. My wife and ex had a hand in those though.

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Haha very nice. I miss having a garden, moved into an apartment. I will definitely step it up once I get into a house. What kind of rounds do you load? I am going to pick up a Kriss Super V soon and I have a Kimber Classic II right now. Time to start loading some .45 ammo so I don't go broke!

I do the garden thing and smoke my own fish that I've caught, love to cook make pasta sauces from scratch. I think cooking and brewing go hand in hand.

I hunt, fish, and hand harvest wild rice. We have a nice garden. We're definitely trying to live a life as "hunter-gatherers" as much as possible.

We don't buy much from the grocery store, but when we buy meat or eggs we buy from a farmer friend. I am NOT going to get into chickens, but I sure thought about it. I think if I didn't travel away in the winter that I would make that my next step.

I used to make all my own bread but went low carb about two years ago so I don't do that.

I make wine from chokecherries, apples, etc- whatever we can find.

I also have been into soapmaking for about two years now. I make shampoo bars, laundry soap, and bath soap. Since I have the oils, I've also been making my own lip balm, body butters, salves, lotions, and so on. I make bath salts, and stuff like that too.

I had fun the other day making marinara sauce. Now, that's not really that impressive I know. Until I mention that EVERYTHING came directly out of my garden. The tomatoes, onion, garlic, parsley, basil, and carrots. We picked the veggies and herbs, and then washed them and cut them up. That was cooked down, and blended with my immersion blender. Then the meat was added, made from venison I shot with my bow last year. It was pretty time consuming, but it really is gratifying. (plus it tasted awesome!)

I here those bath salts will make you naked and do crazy things

crash1292 said:

I here those bath salts will make you naked and do crazy things

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Yeah. Like wash my hair while I"m in there.

BootstrapBill said:

Haha very nice. I miss having a garden, moved into an apartment. I will definitely step it up once I get into a house. What kind of rounds do you load? I am going to pick up a Kriss Super V soon and I have a Kimber Classic II right now. Time to start loading some .45 ammo so I don't go broke!

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I don't load all my stuff. Some rounds are just cheaper to buy. I load my .270win and .338winmag and my .357mag/.38spc. I buy all the shotgun, .40s&w, .22lr and 5.56

Tamales! Another perhaps more appropriate use for my corona mill! They are quite possibly the only other thing that leaves a comparable mess to brewing, and you don't get as many chances in the process to "clean as you go." I guess I like doing them because they seem like another "minute to learn, lifetime to master" sorts of thing .

I do 4wd rockcrawling and build my own roll cages, motor and xfer case mounts, have done a chassis or two and any necessary parts.
Also a cyclist so I build up bikes here and there, thinking about doing this and flipping them for a profit to make some extra cash.

Not reallly scratch building per se but not store bought in a lot of cases

Also do photography, used to develop my own and make my own prints as well but I was forced to go digital about 8 years ago and stopped shooting film except for medium format.

Nightshade said:

I do 4wd rockcrawling and build my own roll cages, motor and xfer case mounts, have done a chassis or two and any necessary parts.
Also a cyclist so I build up bikes here and there, thinking about doing this and flipping them for a profit to make some extra cash.

Not reallly scratch building per se but not store bought in a lot of cases

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My rig

Very nice, I love the FJ80's

I have a 76 FJ40 that has been in project stage for longer than I have wanted but it will get done one day.

A few years ago, I was really into bread baking, and had a wild yeast sourdough starter going for a year or so. That was a ton of fun, and I really was getting pretty good at it---producing sandwich-worthy homemade bread was a major achievement for me.

Unfortunately, my son wound up with a (hopefully temporary) wheat allergy, so I kicked that habit. A few years later (last year), we moved to a house that had enough space that proper sanitation was conceivable, so I jumped into homebrewing. In retrospect, it was a natural step after playing with the sourdough yeasts.

WharfRat said:

Tamales! Another perhaps more appropriate use for my corona mill! They are quite possibly the only other thing that leaves a comparable mess to brewing, and you don't get as many chances in the process to "clean as you go." I guess I like doing them because they seem like another "minute to learn, lifetime to master" sorts of thing .

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That reminds me, I made a pretty good first attempt at tamales, though not from scratch---I used store-bought masa. Had an almost catastrophic failure when the steamer boiled dry, but caught it just in time to salvage that batch. Have to try again... would be fun to start with the corn, though.

I also like making tortillas, again from masa rather than truly from scratch, but I always heat the store-bought corn tortillas one-by-one on the stove. That takes almost as long as making a far superior tortilla from the masa, so there's almost no excuse not to do it.

Nightshade said:

Very nice, I love the FJ80's

I have a 76 FJ40 that has been in project stage for longer than I have wanted but it will get done one day.

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All the bumpers, sliders, panhards and rear links, sway bar extensions and disconnects were made by me.

Get the 40 going!

Bacon! Super easy and delicious. I also can jams and pickles.

I've been expanding into other Brewed Foods: cheese and yogurt for example. Just made about 2 gallons of natural yogurt -- yum!

My GF is a foodie and a great cook so I plan to keep my activities within the domain of Brewed Foods.

I grow chilies in the summer and make a massive amount of pumpkin seeds in the fall. But I really love baking and cooking for the holidays during the winter.

zeg said:

That reminds me, I made a pretty good first attempt at tamales, though not from scratch---I used store-bought masa. Had an almost catastrophic failure when the steamer boiled dry, but caught it just in time to salvage that batch. Have to try again... would be fun to start with the corn, though.

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Ha! Reminds me of the one time I tried with store bought masa. The Mexican mkt stored it next to the laundry detergent and it absorbed the smell. I soldiered on through steaming, but had to "dump that batch." Apparently, washing powder smell does not cook or age out of tamales.

Curtis2010 said:

I've been expanding into other Brewed Foods: cheese and yogurt for example. Just made about 2 gallons of natural yogurt -- yum!

My GF is a foodie and a great cook so I plan to keep my activities within the domain of Brewed Foods.

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Is that a farmhouse cheddar in the pic Curtis? Looks like the one I made!

WharfRat said:

Ha! Reminds me of the one time I tried with store bought masa. The Mexican mkt stored it next to the laundry detergent and it absorbed the smell. I soldiered on through steaming, but had to "dump that batch." Apparently, washing powder smell does not cook or age out of tamales.

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Ugh.. fortunately they carry it in the regular supermarkets around here, so it's in a food-only section of the store. I think I have to agree with your decision to dump the "perfumed" batch.

The tamales that boiled dry were about 1/3 of the batch---I think I made 60 or 70 of them in that go. They were edible, but had a slightly smoked taste... probably not good for you, but I think it was mostly burned corn residue that had dripped down into the steamer water from the first batch. That's what I tell myself, anyway.

I do alot of stuff. Can tomatoes, make yogurt, chicken stock, Make and can enough salsa to last most of the year. Of course dog treats from spent grain.

I'm trying to get into bow making while I wait to go to basic for the army, I have a garden, I'd love to reload my ammo but I can't do that if I live on post, they frown on brewing as well... I may have to live just outside of the post haha. I love to go hiking and bike riding in the forest, though I haven't been in almost 3 years or so.. :/ I love cooking, playing piano and guitar, violin is tricky for me to pick up. Brewing and bow making / wood working are the top followed closely behind with calligraphy I work on my p.o.s Saturn :d no money to upgrade, but she's a 94 sc1 so not really worth working on..
I'd really love to be self sufficient like yooper, I've never hunted but want to go so badly, use a rifle first then if I make a decent bow then transition to that.
*edit* I forgot to add fishing!

maddad said:

Toffee. Instead of store bought xmas presents, I gift homebrew for the X and toffee for the Y.

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I'm not a biologist, but I think it's the Y that prefers home brew and the X that prefers toffee

(genes, nerd humor)

nsmills83 said:

I'm not a biologist, but I think it's the Y that prefers home brew and the X that prefers toffee

(genes, nerd humor)

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Damn, No wonder I could never get a date!

Love to cook aside from making homebrew.

I also enjoy making mustard (stupid simple), making smoking / tobacco pipes from briar blocks and minor woodworking stuff as well.

Does planting, growing, and harvesting 70 acres of small grain and another 40 of red clover count?

WharfRat said:

Is that a farmhouse cheddar in the pic Curtis? Looks like the one I made!

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Yup, one of my first primitive attempts at cheese making (not bad actually), made with genuine Guatemalan cow milk. I know its the real deal because I run down the river in the skiff at 6AM to get it and watch the guy milk it right into my buckets!