Hobo Barrel Cooking

Well old Glenn Filthie-cus was going on the other day about him and his fun-employed friends up in the People's Republik of Canukiestan , hanging out around the burn barrel chugging Thunderbird and hating on all the libtards , and since he did not invite me to the party I figured I had to come up my own hobo barrel .

 

 But not being satisfied with the classic open top bum rig I had to mix it up a little bit

I'll spare you the details , but all I did was cut off the lower third of the barrel at the middle of the roll ridge with my angle grinder .  By cutting it at the middle of the ridge , the lid can be fitted tightly on the cut , so we end up with about a twelve inch high barrel with top and bottom . Then I cut in a door and attached it with a scrap piece of piano hinge and some rivets . The whole thing is sitting on top of the remainder of the barrel with an old concrete propane bottle pad as a base .

It needs some sort of chimney so an empty Coleman propane fuel cylinder . . .

. . . pop riveted onto the bent up tabs of a 4 inch pie cut hole in the lid does the job .

There ya go , something like that

A couple lengths of scrap four inch flu pipe fit right over it real slick

Made a sliding door latch out of an old bench grinder rest I found in my scrap iron bin .

Load it up with some winter dead fall from the maple trees in the back yard , touch it off and smoke out the neighbors .

Took about five minutes to heat up enough to burn clean .

Here's the proof on Oy-tube for all to see . Took about 8 minutes to boil a gallon of water in that old wok .

There, our new out-door TV and Filthie can keep his rot-gut Thunderbird wine .

Load it up with some real wood and build up some coals

Just in the right place to keep an eye on it from the kitchen window while . . . .

. . .  I load up the dutch oven with some fixings for supper

Pop the lid off the rig , move the coals aside and set the dutch oven in the hobo barrel .

Pile some coals on top and let her rip for about an hour .

I did put the lid back on the barrel to keep the heat in as the coals burned down .

Behold the masterpiece .

Rake up the coals and chuck a few more sticks on it after supper .

Desperate times call for desperate measures

With all this desperation and pestilence about , the bread shelves have been a bit sketchy looking at the local supermarket .

Nothing to it then , we can make our own . . .
16 oz of warm water in a warm bowl
1 & 1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of yeast
3 &1/2 cups of flour

One minor issue . . . that jar of dry yeast we had in the fridge . . . Yea I gave up making my own bread six years ago cause it was too darn good and I was putting on too much weight . . . So I used 1 & 1/2 teaspoon of yeast instead of the half teaspoon called for and tossed in a teaspoon of sugar for good measure to boost the prehistoric yeast figuring it might all go pear shaped on me anyhow .

. . . anyhow mix it all up with the round handle of one of those large white plastic spoons till it looks like this . . . cover with cling wrap and stick it in the oven with the light on to proof .

Took all night to get it to double in size .

In the morning we de-gas it by stirring it with the plastic spoon handle again and dump it in an oiled bread pan and let it rise for an hour while we warm up the oven to 400 deg F

Brush some olive oil on the top and pop it into the oven at 400 deg F for 40 minutes . Dump a couple glasses of water in the hot pan beneath it so it makes steam and gives you a nice crunchy crust .

Et Voila . . . 

 Behold the masterpiece  . . . it tastes as good as it looks .