Alex Middleton

Congrats Jeremy!

Very nice!

I like the little hobo knife a lot. It's very unique. I'm assuming you used hidden pins in the rear spacer?

Wheew! I just tried the other batch. I don't think my tastebuds will forgive me for a while! Anybody need 5 gallons of maple vinegar?

That would definitely do it! Mead and I have had a couple of long nights together. I tried the turbo yeast on this batch to see how high I could get the alcohol content. I don't think that it was worth the trade off in flavors. I'll give that Red Star yeast a try on the next batch and see how it comes out. I really should start doing 1 gallon batches instead of 5. At the rate I'm going it'll take me 20 years to get a recipe that I'm really happy with.

Very nice. Well done!

I like it Ruggero! I can't tell from the pictures, but were you able to keep the antler in one piece, or did you have to split it and put it back together?

Definitely not traditional. I started playing around with it a few years ago when I was attempting to "condense" some maple syrup into vodka. The vodka didn't work out well, (with limited free time I need to pick my hobbies and being good at "condensing" alcohol bearing liquid is an art form that I'm not willing to dedicate the time to mastering) but I found that I somewhat enjoyed the taste of the pre-finished product. Ever since then I mix up a batch or two each year with different syrup/water concentrations and different yeasts in an effort to refine the finished product. As far as a process goes, I'm a pretty simple guy. Syrup, water, and yeast, mix, and let sit with a bubbler. I started this batch back in April/May and honestly forgot about it until I found it while I was cleaning the barn last weekend. This batch was 1.75 gallons of syrup to 3.25 gallons of water, with a turbo distilling yeast. I have yet to open the other bucket, but it was made with the same syrup/water ratio and a champagne yeast. I'm somewhat eager to see what the difference in flavor will be between the two. I wouldn't say that it's "good" wine, and I'm sure a sommelier would probably puke if he drank some, but I like it well enough and it makes your head spin after a glass or two. Besides, we usually have more syrup than we know what to do with every year so it's kind of fun to play around with it. I'm going to cut the ratio back to 1.25/3.75 on the next batch and see if I can dry it out a little bit.

First taste of this years maple syrup wine! It's a little on the sweet side, but not too bad overall.

I've tried the tube as well and had a similar experience to Brian. It didn't seem to help with how evenly the blade heated, and I still couldn't see re/decalescense while the blade was in the forge. Now I will typically run my flame a bit rich and just move the blade across the mouth of the forge in the dragons breath with the shop lights turned off. It took some practice, but now I get a much more even heat this way and it's a lot easier to see the phase change.

Regardless of how your anvil reacts, it will be a night and day difference between it and that old piece of I-beam that you have there. My big chunk of 4140 that I use now isn't the best, but I started on an I-beam very similar to that one and I cringe every time I think of it.

I've heard good things about Hackley. Follow orders, rest, and recuperate. Better to be patient now, then get ahead of yourself and make things worse.

Glad to hear it went well. Did you come down to Grand Rapids to get it done?

Best of luck Jeremy, hopefully you'll be back in the shop in no time!

Excellent WIP John. Beautiful knife as well. Thank you for sharing your process.