Paulie

1
0 votes

There are other reasons besides just preservation at room temperature to include the supersaturation of the KNF Food.

To answer your question, are they ruined? No. Are they degraded? Yes. In addition to vital enzymes and plant metabolites there are also a host of biological residents in the KNF Food. All of these degrade as fermentation continues beyond the initial arresting after extraction, albeit at a slower pace. The KNF Food will continue to transform the material as biology and chemistry dictate.

The presence of further alcohol in the solution is okay and still is indicative of the presence of yeast which is desired, but it is when this turns to vinegar that the biology has shifted to acetic acid bacteria and indicate a presence of much more bacteria, which mean much more of the vital stuff you want has degraded significantly.

One way I avoid this situation is to keep my preserved collections in preservation and then fill up a “working jar” with just enough for that month, usually blended with KNF Cleanser and KNF Medicine in the appropriate ratios so that I don’t have to carry around a bunch of jars, and if I forget it or spill it I am not loosing the farm so to speak.

  • drake answered 6 years ago
2
1 vote
In reply to: Raw sugar

Raw sugar sometimes comes in large granules and has a hard time getting close enough to the plant’s surface to create the desired osmotic pressure. This can be overcome by grinding the sugar in some sort of contraption such as a coffee grinder without too much hassle to get the fine texture. A vitamix (or comparable) blender is also probably powerful enough and can be done in a large batch that can also reduce the tedious nature of smaller blending apparatuses.

Here is what the textbook has to say on sugars:

  • drake answered 6 years ago
4
2 votes

The process of fermentation eliminates many of the pesticide type functions when making KNF Food. In fact, many things that are known poisons are made edible after fermentation has elapsed, so I am very skeptical of the papaya leaf KNF Food being an effective pesticide.

You may find it works, but in my best understanding, it acts as a food to stimulate good biology rather than killing or inhibiting something you want to eliminate. I have made KNF Food from papaya leaves and it was quite tasty, though I prefer to make it from the fruits for my purposes.

If you are looking for an effective way to get the proteolytic enzyme from papaya leaves, perhaps consider putting them in a pressure cooker with water and cooking them for many hours until the water reduces in half. This dark slurry is then strained and combined with liquid soap to become an effective pesticide.

  • drake answered 6 years ago
1
0 votes

Fermenting plant juice to make KNF Food is done with strictly one plant at a time. Other recipes for making KNF Food from fruits use 3 or more.

The reason for only using one plant material at a time is in the stage of fermentation, to make it as clean and efficient as possible. The microbes colonizing the plant’s surface are designed to digest it and break that specific plant down as it naturally sloughs off cells, so when you mix them with sugar and cause the juice to come through the cell boundary, these microbes do really well. However, if you have multiple plants, the microbes from one plant are really good at digesting their own plant the are only okay at digesting a different plant. When the microbes mix with multiple plants and the resulting fermentation is only so-so.

The best way to combine KNF Food made by fermenting plant juice is to mix the different KNF Food solutions right before using them. So where a recipe calls for 1:500 of KNF Food, I can put in 1:1000 of one plant material and 1:1000 of another plant material. Both of these together will make 1:500 dilution.

The other thing to note is that different parts of the plant correspond with different phases of the plant growth. In the early vegetative stage, it is best to apply KNF Food made from plant tips, as the plant starts to enter puberty, it is best to use KNF Food from flowers, and as the fruit starts to ripen a KNF Food made from fruit will have added benefit.

  • drake answered 6 years ago
  • last active 6 years ago
1
1 vote

The key to long term storage with KNF Food (which contain both FFJ and FPJ in the old vocabulary) and KNF Police (LAB) is to tie up the water through a process called supersaturation thus arresting the fermentation.

Supersaturation in KNF means that every water molecule is bound with a sugar molecule, and when the microbes try to continue to ferment the solution and thereby degrading it, they instead hibernate because they can not obtain water without obtaining sugar which further dehydrates them.

KNF Police will require equal volumes of brown sugar, so 1 liter of solution will need 1 liter of brown sugar. Volume of irregular solids can be easily measured using Archimedes Method.

Supersaturating KNF Food is a different story as the sugar content of the poured off solution will vary. To be absolutely safe, add equal volume as with KNF Police, but to be economical and not to waste sugar, add the sugar slowly and stir thoroughly. When you are approaching supersaturation the sugar will begin to float like an iceberg on the top of the liquid, and if using a wooden spoon to stir with sufficient volumes the spoon will begin to float. These signs indicate you are close, so in practice a bit more sugar is added to slightly over saturate the solution.

Over saturation will result in a ring of sugar falling out of solution no matter how much you stir it, and it is best to slightly over saturate to ensure that you definitely supersaturate for optimal preservation.

A supersaturated solution will store for many years.

In the case of a KNF Food that is made from the growing tips, the hormones, enzymes and metabolites that are so vital to growth will begin to break down after one year and should at that point be considered more of a KNF Food made from fruits when used in KNF Application Theory.

KNF Food made from fruits will get better over time and will store indefinitely at 1 celsius.

KNF Police will store for 3 months to a year at room temperature, but is best to use within the 3 month window as they are very aggressive microbes and even supersaturating them will not arrest them for long.

KNF Medicine stored out of sunlight and around 1 celsius with a airtight lid will last millenia, and in fact will improve over time just like a fine whiskey. The particles micronize as it ages and it’s effects becomes more potent as they are more readily absorbable upon metabolization, thus an aged KNF Medicine can be reduced by half when formulating for every year of storage.

It is recommended to store each KNF Medicine component separately to facilitate this micronization and only combine the 5 herbs together for the volume you will be needing for that month’s use.

  • drake answered 6 years ago
1
0 votes
In reply to: Coral sand

Yes, it is still important to toast coral sand. The reason for toasting to a light brown like a perfectly done marshmallow is twofold:

  1. Remove the moisture from the calcarb so the vinegar will penetrate more easily and thoroughly dissolve all the calcium out into solution
  2. Coral is full of tiny bits of organic matter, so to cook them out so that the mixture will not rot later during storage.

I recommend doing this on a slightly higher heat that has been traditionally taught, around a low medium so that it will take about 15 minutes with constant stirring as not to burn. Try not to burn the coral and turn it black as that chemically destroys the calcium and starts to carbonize it. Sort of like the marshmallow, it takes keen effort and the right heat to cook it just perfectly!

Good luck, and Long live the natural farmer!

  • drake answered 6 years ago
1
0 votes
In reply to: Level 2 video access

The Level 2 competency course is best in person. In fact that is the only real way to get this course. The Level 1 course that I taught at Hawaiian Sanctuary was so comprehensive that it covers almost all the material that would be covered in Level 2 minus the hands on portions. The reason for this is that they wanted a 2 hour class for 6 sessions, so I just went for it giving everything I had to the class. I am however always refining and improving the course, so just like watching Master Cho, there is always more to be gleaned even from the most basic course.

I am however in the process of releasing footage from the Level 2 Course that I taught here at the knfFarm in Onomea. I was reluctant to just give this away as I open source most everything and I need to recoup my costs so I can keep doing what I do, but alas, the world really needs this, and for some reason I am firmly opposed to operating quid pro quo.

However if you would like to thank me online (and dollars are the best way to do that) you can make a financial contribution to me personally through my website (just change the quantity to something appropriate) or paypal = drakew@gmail.com

  • drake answered 6 years ago
2
0 votes

In KNF it has been found that worm castings are an almost essential part of waking up the dormant KNF Microbes. Worm castings are full of vital humic and fulvic acids which signal to the indigenous micro organisms that it is time to wake up and go to work. In nature this would occur in a rich forest environment where the fungus is happy to hatch and live a very comfortable life, but for us, we are sort of “hacking” nature a bit by tricking the microbes into thinking they are in the forest, when in reality, they are in our cultivated fields.

Humic and fulvic acids as well as worm castings are naturally found in a humus layer, yet we want to kick start that process, so we can make a tea of concentrated KNF Microbes and in this include KNF Food, KNF Cleanser, KNF Medicine as well as worm castings and actively aerate this solution for 24-36 hours to grow the populations to immense numbers, then spray or drench this on the area we want to treat, and the soil responds by coming to life with all the essential ingredients of a naturally healthy system.

  • drake answered 6 years ago
1
0 votes
5k views
For about a month now I’ve been studying all the information that exists on the web about K...
  • GalilSoil asked 6 years ago
  • last active 6 years ago
2
0 votes

Yes, the oven will work well. 180 for 2 hours seems appropriate to get rid of the moisture. I think it will have to be a bit warmer to toast out the organic material. Seems to me more like 250 for 2 hours, but this is an energy thing. Don’t want to burn them, and I don’t have any empirical evidence on this as I always use the pan method, but I typically use a low medium heat, which is a bit more than what the textbook calls for, but we did this in Korea under Master Cho’s watch and he nodded in approval of the higher heat, quicker cook time.

When baking in the oven, crushing is not necessary unless it makes sense. When cooking in the pan, crushing is mandatory trying to get the shells 1-2mm in size. I do not recommend powdering them.

  • drake answered 6 years ago
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