Batch 67 Finished, Water, Bagging, Batch 68 Completed, Basement, Gl...

Yesterday morning was not as bad as the prior and I felt a bit better. The body aches had diminished quite a bit so I ended up with some more ambition for the day.

I had woke up at 4am and seen the freeze dryer had finished the cycle so I put it on for a few more hours until after I was up for the day. Since the cycle was a rerun of prior batches it went a LOT faster. Only 14.75 hours is a far cry from the normal 60 it seems to take for most things.

All 5 trays were nicely dried once again. I set them out to empty to mylar bags.

I am spending about an hour during the day right now with Duolingo, plus half an hour soaking in the morning and evening for about 2 hours a day. So far it is sticking some and seems to work pretty well with the gamified version of learning.

I got the hose in the spa to top off the water and went back to the bagging.

7 more bags filled from the trays plus a bag of basil that we had run and was still nicely crispy dry.

About half an hour later the water was topped and overflowing nicely. I threw a bunch of chems in to balance it out and closed it up for the day to heat up.

The defrost cycle took less than an hour as there was so little ice from the run which made it easy for me to get it loaded up again. I didn't need to wash anything as everything being run was mostly dry already. Batch 68 got loaded onto the trays and into the freeze dryer at 10:30am and the cycle started.

I then got my glycerin batch going. I need to deal with the temperature controller as it is not shutting off the outlet at temp like it is supposed to. I have to crock set on low so I am able to catch it as it goes up over 200F. It started at 11am and will be done that time today.

The basement has been a dark little pit for years and everyone else but me doesn't like going down there, so I installed a pair of lights that really blows the room up with light.

My brewing stuffs have been stored on shelving down in the basement, bottles galore, some brewing supplies, fermenters, etc. I emptied the one shelf and hauled it up to the carport and I fixed it to the wall right outside the kitchen door. On the wall of my studio I fixed another half shelf. Today I will be moving the boxes of bottles and growlers to the shelves which will really open up the basement for storing our bins of freeze dried foods.

The other light installed that gives me 4 lights for the small basement and full coverage now.

It was sprinkling when I went out to put the birds to bed and to cover the celery. The weather is looking good enough to keep the celery growing for at least the rest of the month.

I had gone out to check the spa temp and found it was at 92F as the water had set the temp when it was overflowing. I turned it up and went inside the house to see the freeze dryer was finished with batch 68 in only 9 hours.

All the trays were nicely dried again and I tossed each into bags then onto the counter for bagging in mylar today. Batch 69 has to get put in today and I am not sure yet what this special numbered batch is going to be, something to match the batch number for sure but what...?

Nice and full but luke warm to begin with. By the time we got out it had warmed up fully.

Today it is raining a bit and the boys are out of school early and have Thursday and Friday off school. Batch 69 needs to get started, more basement cleaning and organizing, we have the boys teacher conferences this afternoon, and I have to work to get the butcher area cleaned and ready for the turkeys which need to start getting butchered in the next couple weeks.