Homemade Science

Life is really just one big science experiment around here. Especially if you look in that opaque container at the back of the refridgerator. This last week has been full of science, everywhere we look.

First the Dada person siphoned off the first round of plum wine. In which we learned all about fermentation, gravity, volume, yeast, evaporation and how to siphon (a seriously useful skill to have.)



The first ever Haller Lake vintage plum should be ready for drinking this fall.


Then there was the great butter debate. When cream is separated into curds and whey ( butter and buttermilk) which will have the greater volume. In which we learned about volume, agitation, nutrition, food chain, solids, yeilds, predictions, liquids, observations, homogenization and how to spread it on a cracker without breaking it, the cracker that is. Also a very useful skill.


One half gallon heavy cream yielded 2 pounds of butter and nearly a quart of buttermilk.


Next up. Salt.

We made fun little snowflake pictures based on this post from Scrumdilly-do. We did not have any white tempera so I mixed the dark blue tempera paint with some leftover white acrylic. Sprinkled with kosher salt and they made lovely snowflake pictures, that also kept some people busy for a long time... As they dried we noticed that the salt was absorbing some colour. But only the blue. It was in essence filtering the blue tempera pigment out of the acyrlic/tempera mix. After many phone calls, some internet research and a damn lot of guessing we came up with a couple of theories. In which we learned about colour mixing, polymers, suspensions in liquid, filters, capillary action, absorbtion, evaporation, printmaking, reuse, and how to look things up on the internet. Another useful skill.





That is kosher salt. What do you think is happening here?


Then we watched American Idol. A person can't be virtuous all the time and our brains needed a break.