Preparing a yeast starter from a culture

Step one to propagate yeast from a slant culture is to allow the slant to come to room temperature. Then make some wort to grow it in. 

Get out a couple of test tubes, foil to cover the containers, inoculation loop and a lighter. 

In a flask, measure out 58 grams of dry malt extract, for 500 ml of water.  This will make wort that it about 1.040.Carefully bring the wort to a boil to sterilize it. Allow it to cool. 

 Sterilize the test tubes and foil covers.

 Flame the inoculation loop, scrape some of the yeast off of the slant of growth media and put it in about 10 ml of the sterile wort. Put the test tubes somewhere around 75 F, and wait for signs of growth.

Once active growth is present (it will foam up when swirled) double the volume in steps, up to about a liter of active culture.  I put it on a stir plate once it's more than a test tube's volume to provide more oxygen for the yeast's growth.

 To verify the number of yeast cells present draw up 10 ml of the stirred culture and dilute up to 50 ml with water.

Put a drop on a hemocytometer. A hemocytometer is a special microscope slide with a counting chamber marked off in a grid. Each square is a known volume, so by counting the number of cells in a sampling of squares, accounting for the dilution and the total volume of the starter culture, the number of yeast cells can be calculated. In this case, my starter had 146 billion yeast cells.  The recommended pitching rate for a 5 gallon batch of 1.060 original gravity wort works out to 233 billion, so I'm a bit light on the yeast.   

Deck rigging

I finally got around to putting the deck rigging on. I had made the wooden pieces a few weeks ago, from cherry scraps I had in the shop. The beads came from the skinboat shop. I gave them several coats of polyurethane to keep them from weathering. 

I opted to put grab lines the length of the kayak, so if I end up swimming, I can hold onto the kayak and the wind doesn't take it. 

Covering the frame

The frame cover is sewn on with the seams on top.  A pocket is sewn at the bow and stern, with about 4" less material than the fabric would naturally drape on the frame. 

The skin is pulled tight and the frame popped into the pockets on the ends.

Cockpit coaming

The cockpit coaming is the only part not made of cedar.  A hoop of ash was bent around a form after soaking in hot water. After it dried, I took it home and drilled and sanded it. It's drilled to allow sewing the cover up to the cockpit.  The ends of the coaming are lashed together at the overlap joint.

Completing the frame

Today the frame was completed.  The floor pieces were lashed in, the foot braces were installed, the deck beams were cut, shaped and installed and the final tung oiling was completed.

The foot braces are attached with the only screws on the entire kayak.

Keel lashing and preparing floor runners and boards

The keel lashing is done through a hole drilled in the keel at each rib.

Floor boards and floor runner pieces were cut and sanded.

Lashing and tying

A total of 271 rib to keel or stringer intersections have to be lashed and tied together. A box lashing is used.

The stringers were tapered down at the bow end.

Ribs and keel

Today the shape of the hull was formed.  The keel was cut and installed and then 5 key station ribs were put in. The stringers were put on these ribs and then the remaining ribs were fit into this structure.

Finishing deck assembly

Day 5 had a variety of tasks getting ready for ribs tomorrow.  The rest of the frame to gunwale lashing was completed, the first coat of tung oil finish was applied, the stringers were prepared, and the pulley was put in.

The stringers were made from square stock run two passes through a shaper to make a round (to the left of the frame).

This pulley will have a rope installed so you can pull your baggage or flotation bag up into the bow.

Deck frames

I put in the remaining deck frames, using a sight, scribe, cut, fit, shape, dip, drill and peg process. A careful marking and sawing with a fine toothed Japaneese saw are critical to this process.

After installation, the frames are drilled and lashed to the gunwales.