Making Apple Chips

February 22, 2012 Zac Leave a comment

I decided to try my hand at making some apple chips for this weekends up coming adventuring with friends. I was originally inspired by my buddy’s wife’s facebook post on making fruit and veggie chips. A few days later I saw another friends post on making apple chips on both facebook and then again later one on pinterest. I decided I simply had to give it a go and make some to try. This post shares how I made them, what I learned, and what I would do differently next time.

I scoured the internet for “recipes” and procedures. It seems everyone more or less follows the same basic process. Some use a quick lemon juice dip to prevent oxidation (browning). Some use symple syrup dip, and others a solid sugar/spice mix. It seems the sugar dip is somehow antimicrobial from what I read though I’m somewhat dubious of that fact. I decided to use what I had on hand and went with a solid sugar/spice mix. I figured some apples might make better chips then others. As I could find no clear consensus as to which apples worked best I went with my favorite Fuji apples. I decided to use a blend of sugars and spices for my sugar coating.

apple chip recipe

1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cinnamon
2 tablespoons vanilla sugar
1 largish pinch ground nutmeg
1 tiny pinch cloves

Mix all of the above in a bowl. Some suggest using a large ziplock bag for tossing your apple slices around in the sugar. That can work as well but I had no large bags on hand. Preheat your oven to 200 F when you start all of the prep work.

The other two kitchen items you need is parchment paper (so the apple chips don’t stick to the pan) and a Mandolin type slicer. You could make them with a knife if you are really good at cutting thin slices but the mandolin is fast and you get uniform slices. I learned that having uniform slices is important. I cut a few up by hand to try thicker slices and they do not dry out and get crispy. Thicker slices are more like chewy apple bits, so if you prefer that cut thicker slices with a knife.

My mandolin is a combo grater and pretty small. Much too small to slice a whole apple making the really cool round apple chips. I suspect if I make Apple Chips regularly for hiking snacks I will by a single purpose larger mandolin with holder. It’s pretty easy to slice the end of a finger off with a mandolin as the blade is razor sharp. To accommodate my small mandolin I halved and cored my apples. I sliced 3-6 slices at a time into my sugar/spice bowl. Tossed each slice about with the spoon and transferred the coated apple slices to parchment lined baking pans.

After I filled the baking pan with coated apple slices, I put them in the oven at 200F to dry. Various recipes indicated different times for baking in the oven. I checked the slices at 15 minute intervals after the 1st hour. I pulled them out at 2 hrs 15 minutes. I suspect that the apple type (how much moisture it has) and relative humidity on the day of making these will both influence the drying time greatly. I do not have a food dehydrator at this time, but those work wonderfully well according to my friends wife. Three medium sized apples filled the two making trays in the photo above.

These are amazingly tasty. Once fully cooled they popped off the parchment paper easily. Trying to remove them early is a lesson in sticky mess. The thicker slices I cut with a knife vs using the mandolin are almost like a chewy apple candy. When I do this again, I think I will try to use a sifter to powder the apples vs dipping. There was a bit more sugar stuck to them then I would like due to super juicy Fuji apples that I used. A less juicy apple might be a better choice for making apple chips. I will experiment next time with 3 different varieties of apples to learn the differences. I have stored these in a plastic container. This weekend when I’m out adventuring with friends I’ll share with them and get some feedback from other people. These were an easy to make snack that are light weight and super yummy. Give it a try, you will not be disappointed.

CX500 Cafe Racer Build

CX500C fuel tank swap on the Cafe Racer

February 21, 2012 Zac 6 Comments

Early on in the process, I decided that the large square ugly gas tank would be swapped off with a custom tank on the Honda CX500 Cafe Racer build. The photo above shows the original tank on the right, and the modified later model CX500C tank on the left. I cut out the recessed fuel cap, and installed a weld in fuel cap bung made by drag specialties that takes Harley Davidson 84-E96 vented right hand thread compatible fuel caps. I wanted a nice clean looking tank and this seemed like the way to go. The new tank is about half the volume, but I’m not concerned this is not going to be a touring motorcycle and 2.5 gallons of fuel is more then sufficient.

Somewhat surprising but two significant modifications had to be made to the frame to make the Honda CX500C tank fit and mount up on my CX500 model bike. I initially thought that it would be an easy bolt on swap when I picked up the smaller much more attractive looking CX500 custom fuel tank. I first moved the rear mount such that the tank would fit over the stock mounting points used on the original tank. I bored out the metal washers so they would fit over the studs. I used this method to locate the rear mount, which I cut off the frame and ended up moving about 2″ forward. This put the tank in the right spot such that the indents for the coils on the underside of the tank were in the correct location. I turned some custom threaded bosses on the lathe for new front mounts. Then I cut off the original studs and tack welded the new threaded bosses onto the frame located centered over the original studs location. When the frame is stripped for painting I’ll finish weld the mounting bosses in place.

After I moved the mounts and the tank was mounted to the frame it was time to do a little custom work on the top of the tank. I wanted a cleaner look then the ugly stock flap over locking fuel cap. First I cut out some sheet steel to fit the opening roughly. Then I used the planishing hammer to form the compound curves. It is harder to make a compound curved piece of metal then most people think. A lot of careful hammering, planishing, and bending got the fit just right so the curves matched up perfectly.

I left a bit of the recess lip on the inside of the tank. This should provide additional strength to the top of the tank and help with any oil canning and distortion from welding. This type of welding requires very large amounts of patience. The goal is to keep the metal cool the entire time so you don’t get oil canning or warping of your metal due to excessive heat. Lots of little spot welds with cooling time in between keeps things from getting too hot.

The finished weld looks good. Still needs some prep work prior to painting but nothing more then a skim coat of filler will be needed for a flawlessly perfect finish on the tank.

The tank is ready for final stripping, metal prep, priming and painting. This is some of the last fabrication and customization of the original Honda CX500 frame. Soon I’ll pull the motor and remaining parts to strip and paint the frame/rear swing arm and start the reassembly of the bike for spring riding. I’ve been sandblasting restoring and painting the small parts all winter in preparation of the reassembly of the bike.

Tool builds improvements and repairs

Tips for hanging wall cabinets

February 18, 2012 Zac 17 Comments

My buddy Joe hit me up to help him hang some wall cabinets above his washer and dryer in the laundry room. It’s always fun to hang out and be productive at the same time. It was a much better way to spend a Friday afternoon then slaving away at the day job.

First steps is to measure the space and select a height. There are rules for cabinet heights, but sometimes you don’t want to follow them. Over the laundry was one of those times. It’s important to think about how you will use your cabinets and surrounding space before installing them. We wanted to leave space to be able to put a laundry basket on top of the machine and still open the cabinets if needed.

A good tip for installing wall cabinets it to put a couple of strips across the back into studs. You can easily shim and straighten the strips if the wall is wavy. Then the cabinets attach easily to the straight, plumb, and level strips instead of struggling to shim each and every cabinet. The strapping also allows you to have evenly spaced screws on the insides of the cabinets and also allows for additional screws versus screwing into the studs directly. Sometimes strips are not feasible, in small kitchens/etc where the loss of 3/4″ space is critical. I did a kitchen on Beacon hill where every inch counted and we went into the studs directly. The down side is occasionally one cabinet only has two screws into a single stud to support it. In this case, we used 2x4s to push the cabinets out a little bit. The reach over the washer is difficult enough, so that extra 1.5″ out from the 2×4 goes a long way to make the cabinets more accessible.

Another useful tip is to put up a temporary rail to rest the cabinets on when installing them. The right photo shows the first cabinet resting on the rail we screwed into the strapping we installed. Cabinets are heavy, and usually a two man job. With both of these tips you can hang cabinets without help if needed. It’s always better to have a friend come help you, but it is possible to put up cabinets well solo using these two tricks.

After hanging both cabinets, we had to make a filler piece. This meant a round trip to my workshop where we carefully cut the center filler board to the correct width. When putting in the last filler on a cabinet installation like this I find it works best to put a small taper ~5 degrees or less on one side. I cut the board ~1/16″ over the measured width of the gap between the two cabinets. When we got back to my buddy Joe’s place we did final fitment by hand with a small hand plane and a jig I made years ago. Sadly I did not think to take a pic of the jig setup. The jig is simply a board with a stop screwed in perpendicular to another board. It is put up against a wall on the floor. It allows you to easily plane down thin strips of wood that are often needed when doing cabinetry installs.

The tapered edge we put on the final filler board allowed us to sneak up easily on a perfect fitment of the filler board. The last think you want is to have an ugly gap or seam in between cabinets due to poorly fitting this piece. Of course We did a good job of it. The install is seamless, right against the walls on both side and we didn’t use any caulk or putty filler to hide any gaps. This is the way cabinets should be when installed, the right way. All that’s left was to add the doors.

With the doors put back on the cabinets, our job was done. We celebrated with a cold drink while standing back and admired our days work. It was a great day, a fun project, and every thing went smoothly.

From the Kitchen

How to make Vanilla Extract and Vanilla Sugar

February 2, 2012 Zac 3 Comments

When it comes to baking tasty treats, nothing is more important then the ingredients. In my opinion, cooking is all about the ingredients. One common ingredient in baked goods is vanilla extract. Nothing is better then natural vanilla extract, and in fact it is quite easy to make yourself. I have been making my own vanilla extract for many years now. It started when I noticed the contents list on a bottle of store bought vanilla extract and saw things I was not happy to see there. Originally I only made natural vanilla extract, but a couple of years back I started using the inner vanilla beans to make vanilla sugar along with the liquid vanilla extract. Vanilla sugar is excellent for baking, or it can be used directly in coffee and tea to impart a wonderful flavor to your favorite hot beverage. If you are at a loss for a Christmas gift, make a batch of this vanilla sugar and package it up in small jars. It makes a good gift for a coffee lover.

As promised in my early post about 3d Cakes and some 3D cake baking tips, this post will detail how to make your own vanilla extract from natural vanilla beans. First you must acquire some vanilla beans at a local spice shop. I buy a lot of my spices from a local shop called Granite State Natural Foods in Concord, NH. They have a fair selection of spices, flavors, and such available in addition to organic and natural foods. Granite State Natural Foods is the best place I’ve found north of Christinas in Cambridge for hard to find ingredients. Madagascar Vanilla Beans are sold individually at Granite State Natural Foods. Generally I buy 2-3 beans when I make up a new batch of vanilla extract and vanilla sugar.

Selecting vanilla beans does not seem to be an exact science. I try to select fatter more plump beans. As you will see in a bit, I use the inner small black seed-like part of the bean to make vanilla sugar. A fatter more plump vanilla bean seems to have more of these inner vanilla beans. They are also easier to cut up and handle.

After you have bought some vanilla beans, gather the rest of your ingredients (vodka and sugar) along with some small glass containers. Do not use plastic for storing extracts, spices, or ingredients. Plastic lets the flavor molecules pass through via diffusion over time. This results in less flavorful ingredients, which in turn results in less tasty snacks. I use the small glass bottles you see above for my vanilla extract. For my vanilla infused sugar I use an old spaghetti jar. I like to save and reuse as much as I can in life, and old glass jars/bottles are perfect for many things in the kitchen.

For vanilla extract, I use 1 cut and cleaned bean into ~1.75 oz of vodka. My ratio for infusing Vanilla Sugar is 1 vanilla bean insides to 200g of refined pure cane sugar. I like to weigh out half the sugar to start, then add the remainder at the end. I find it’s easier to mix the small inner beans into the sugar this way.

It is a little hard to see, but I first cut the two ends of the vanilla bean off. I then half the bean lengthwise to make it easier to split the bean. Slicing with a sharp knife, cut the bean lengthwise. This exposes the black inner beans. I use a small spoon to scrape this inner bean into the vanilla sugar. If they stick to your spoon just dip it into the sugar and the beans will stay with the sugar. When done cutting and scraping the inner beans out of your vanilla beans, add the other half of the sugar, cap your jar, and shake like mad. Sometimes larger clumps of inner bean needs to be mashed into the sugar with a spoon against the side of the glass jar to help it mix. I find that the vanilla sugar needs at least a month to sit in order to let the flavors mingle and infuse into the sugar.

After quartering and scraping the inner vanilla bean into the sugar, I put the vanilla bean husks(for lack of a better name) into my small liquid extract bottles. Then fill with vodka, cap, and let sit on a shelf for at least a week before using. The longer the vanilla extract sits with the vanilla bean inside the better the flavor. I do not filter out the bean solids from my extract, but you are welcome to do so if you feel the need. Careful decanting from my bottles allows me to separate the liquid from solid when cooking.

The finished natural vanilla sugar and vanilla extract are delicious. Well, they will be with a little bit of time in the spice cabinet. You can already see the vodka darken as it starts to pull the natural vanilla flavor from the beans in the above photo where the first bottle I filled is the left most bottle. By making your own vanilla extract you can be sure it contains nothing “extra” such as glycerin, glycols, or corn syrup found in some commercial vanilla extracts. With valentines day approaching I will be doing some treat making for my favorite little ones. Perhaps, I’ll share that in a future post. Hope you find this post useful and give making your own vanilla extract a try. As always, ask in the comments below if you have any questions.

Projects by Zac

Making Apple Chips

CX500C fuel tank swap on the Cafe Racer

Tips for hanging wall cabinets

How to make Vanilla Extract and Vanilla Sugar

Sharing some of my projects and what I've learned along the way