Took a break from making a metal thing to making a wooden thing!

Turning wood on a metal lathe

One of my other hobbies, outside of rocket building, is gardening. Specifically, I grow hot peppers and not just hot peppers but crazy hot peppers.

The species I am growing this year are:

"Ghost Peppers"

Naga Morich

Bin Jolokia (sourced from Bangladesh)

Bhut Jolokia

Peach Bhut Jolokia

"Big Black Mama" -Naga Morich Crossed with a 7 pot Douglah

"Not Ghost Peppers"

Georgia Flame

Fatali ("Devil's Tongue")

Chocolate Habenero

Urfa Biber

What do I do with these peppers?

I like to make hot sauces. Favoring fermenting, I usually coarsely grind them into a pepper mash mixed with 2% by weight of an exotic salt like black or pink salt. A dash of kimchi juice is blended in to provide a head start for the lactobacillis culture that preserves the peppers as they age for several months in mason jars. This year I am going to be swapping out the mason jars for wooden barrels... or so I thought.

After scouring the tubes of the interwebs, I found that small wooden barrels go for around ~$50 each. Since I need a few of them, I couldn't find myself paying that much. Feeling down about my prospects, I had an epiphany! Maybe I could use some of the oak and cherry wood that has been seasoning since I collected it during Hurricane Matthew for use in my smoker could be turned down into some kind of fermentation vessel.

And so it began...

I also made a cap for it but I will get a picture of that added later.

So my lathe is a little too small to turn most of this so I ran to Harbor Freight and picked up a die grinder and some rasps.

To bore the inside out, I progressively center drilled a few inches of depth then reaming it with the die grinder until I could fit the drill chuck in to drill a few inches farther. Eventually it got too deep and I have to use my hand drill for the pilot holes. Eventually I got to the bottom and viola!

Now it is wrapped up in a brown paper bag to let it finish drying out slowly to hopefully avoid the splitting red oak is known for. I have also learned that is there exists food safe wood glue that I can use to patch up any leaks that I am sure I will find.

Though this turned out to be a fun weekend project I still feel that I will still buy one or two wooden barrels for some of the mashes that I plan to age for several years. I will post some updates as I go along.