A Fine piece of Engineering

Robin holds two great British engineers in high esteem, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and Thomas Telford.  We viewed several pieces of their great engineering feats a couple of years ago on our UK trip.  Robin’s engineering exploits will not challenge these great men, or those who presently deal in this area, but he was rather pleased with his solution to our problem.

Grapes from our backyard grape vine

It was time to make some grape jelly, and as every cook and her husband knows, the juice from previously cooked up grapes  must drain slowly through some sort of sieve.  But how to achieve this when there is a huge amount of hot grapes bubbling away in the preserving pan?  The quantity was just too much to make use of our sieve or colander.  As it happened, we had one of those splatter guards which are used over frying pans and the metal gauze had previously been damaged  and removed.   Robin stitched some mutton cloth around the edge, then fashioned a wire handle around the top.  Attaching rope to the handles, to the bath tap, and a handy hook on the wall above the bath, the sieve was suspended in place.  Of course, the test came when the hot liquid was carefully poured into the suspended sieve, with the preserving pan in place to catch the grape juice.  Eureka, it worked!!

Low tech engineering solves the problem

And this is the final result, lots of jars of tasty grape jelly.  It is so tasty on a piece of our breakfast morning toast.

 

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