Martin Fisher

Another failure—it goes bitter. I thought a shorter cook time would make a difference.

If I wanted to, I could access all recipes on a $49 Amazon Fire tablet. Lickety-split!

Yes.

Two hours of pressure cooking wasn't enough. I'll cook it for one more hour.

My maternal grandmother cooked on a wood cook stove most of her life. My grandparents didn't drive, they relied on family to take them to town for necessities once a month. My grandmother began every shopping list as such...sugar, flour, coffee, tea, soap (laundry—Fels-Naptha), soda (baking), matches (strike-anywhere)...

I grew-up fishing brook trout in tiny brooks in north-central Pennsylvania. It's surprising how they're able to survive in such tiny brooks, maturing to no more that 6-7 inches in that sort of habitat.

Definitely!!!

Yes, there are several ways to do this in Windows/Linux.

I think I could handle one! LOL

"Native brook trout populate many of the innumerable streams that flow down both sides of the Appalachian Mountains. Now protected, the fish at one time likely provided food for Cherokee and European families alike." Tullock, John. Appalachian Cooking: New & Traditional Recipes (p. 136). Countryman Press. Kindle Edition. The only place in Appalachia where native brookies are fully protected is most of far eastern Kentucky. He recommends farmed fish, which can be nasty!

Just freezing and pressure cooking this time. I'll try the freezing and soda ash (at a lower temperature) in a couple days.

Quoting Chris Young from the Chefsteps forum: "I've been thinking about this a bit lately, and I'm eager to try pressure cooking for four to eight hours. I think it will create sonething like black garlic in a fraction of the time." My first attempt at pressure cooker black garlic (noted above) was a failure—bitterness. I'm going to try it again—incorporating a pre-freeze and cooking for ~2 hours. I picked-up a couple heads of garlic at Wegmans yesterday.

Google Docs also has version control. I like using Google Docs because recipes are automatically uploaded to Google Drive—no extra steps. When I do use a word processor it's open-source LibreOffice.

I think the abbreviations are silly stupid—they save very little space. BRN,RAISD,HRVSTD in USA Born,Raised,Harvested in USA They may be meaningless, or at least confusing, to ESL/EFL folks.

I've decided that the above mentioned book irritates me. Just few things.... Many of the recipes are rather haute for Appalachia. Some of the recipes call for ingredients that are out of sync with the seasons. His knowledge of Appalachian ichthyology leaves a lot to be desired. The two fish species mentioned below are members for the sucker family, but there is no mention of the White Sucker which inhabits a MUCH larger area in Appalachia—they also definitely "run." And there are no sucker recipes. Canned suckers is/was a food of necessity in some areas.

BRN, RAISD, HRVSTD I like it, it saves 5 whole letters and reminds me of Wheel of Fortune!

Research COOL (Country of Origin Labeling.) "Abbreviations for the production steps are permitted as long as the information can be clearly understood by consumers. For example, consumers would likely understand: “brn” as meaning “born;” “htchd” as meaning “hatched;” “raisd” as meaning “raised;” “slghtrd” as meaning “slaughtered;” or “hrvstd” as meaning “harvested.”"

I think that a proper lye (sodium hydroxide) solution would work. So would pickling lime (slaked lime AKA calcium hydroxide.) Soda ash (sodium carbonate) is the easiest and cheapest option for me.

Another thought—some dehydration after freezing 'should' increase the percentage of reducing sugar.

Again, I've researched rapid black garlic production. The look (like charcoal) of the skin of Jonny's black garlic, black ramps, and black onions coupled with jhalters23's comment above does seem to suggest that there is some pH tweaking going on. I wasn't able to find any reference to the use of soda ash (sodium carbonate) for pH adjustment of black garlic in any patent or research paper. What I did find that's interesting is this: Effect of Freezing Pretreatment on the Processing Time and Quality of Black Garlic (emphasis added) Abstract Because freezing treatment can destroy the cell structure of garlic, we investigated the effect of freezing pretreatment on black garlic processing with the traditional processing method as contrast. Results showed that freezing for 30 h had the greatest impact on the reducing sugar content. The control garlic processing 21–24 days had the best quality. Freezing pretreatment can affect the black garlic quality through the browning degree, reducing sugar content, amino‐N content, total phenolic content and 5‐hydroxymethyl‐2‐furaldehyde (5‐HMF) levels. The freezing garlic had a faster color change than control samples. When the processing ended, the reducing sugar content, total phenols content and 5‐HMF content of freezing pretreated garlic were increased by 51.88, 58.54, 25%, respectively, compared with the control samples. The amino‐N content of freezing‐pretreated garlic decreased 50.97% compared with the control one. The results indicated that freezing pretreatment can promote the generation of functional materials. Practical Applications Although garlic has been used worldwide as food or herbal supplement, some people feel discomfort because of its strong pungent odor. Black garlic is one of the garlic‐processed products, eliminating its stimulating odor. However, the quality of black garlic products on the market is varied and the processing time is long. As is known, freezing is widely used to destroy cell structure. In the present study, the use of freezing pretreatment in black garlic processing can promote the generation of functional materials and significantly reduce processing time from 60–90 to 22 days. These provided potential method to the black garlic processing. Any thoughts on the use of soda ash (sodium carbonate) as an accelerator? Percentage of soda ash (sodium carbonate) to water? I'm thinking 2.5% to 5%!? Seems to me that it would be best to add the soda ash (sodium carbonate) solution before freezing then drain it off after thawing. ???

I've found that, in recent years and in general, the quality of tinned corned beef sucks! It's not chunky, it's more like mush! It also often tastes metallic. Anyway, when I could find decent tinned corned beef (I generally eat the low-carb way) I made corned beef hash with rutabaga rather than potato—it's tasty and relatively low-carb. I now make my own canned corned beef.

The EZ-DUZ-IT has the exact same issues as the Swing-A-Way. Did cans change? I got so dang mad I was close to opening a can like Popeye!!! LOL!

FWIW: See jhalter23's comment about soda ash on Jonny Hunter's Instagram. May 18, 2016 Jonny posted "Black ramps in 2.5 days"

Hartshorn salt (ammonium carbonate), deer antler, was used as far back as the 17th century—supposedly, according to Davidson, Alan (1999), Oxford Companion to Food, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 372

I researched this for a good bit of time. In other recipes it seems to refer to self-rising flour. There's no mention of other flour or a leavening agent in the recipe.