Donna, Wooden dowels. I would take post hole diggers, dig a hole, take one bag of concrete. Pour the concrete around a 4" x 4" post in the hole you dug. The next day- Take a drill bit the size of the wooden dowel thickness and drill holes for your dowel branches. You can use screws with closed hoop ends (eye screws). Rope, shoe string leather, or wire your bottles to the eye screws on the branches. I also would polyurethan the entire wooden structure before hanging the bottles. I believe the open mouth up was the original way that a bottle tree was meant to be hung. They were meant to ward off evil spirits. The scary sound of the wind over the mouth of a bottle would certainly do that. The different depths of rain in the bottles will make the notes vary and it will become what is called a wind organ. My concern would be that the bottles would become mosquito breeding beds and the bottles may get water stains and other bugs on the inside. (??????) I'm speculating. I have considered this for my own garden, so I've thought about it a lot. Hope something here helps. I cant wait to see your bottle collection!!!!! Susie

I've been reading up on "approved" hot sauce recipes. many of them call for substantially more tomato than pepper. is there a reason for this? Taste preference in part I think, the popularity of tomato based sauces. But also because tomatoes are much more acidic than peppers so using tomatoes adds an element of safety and shelf life too. Not to mention that many gardeners grow tons more tomatoes than they do peppers. :) Now there might be a problem. None of them are tested for canning as far as I know so I don't know how they (the lids especially) will hold up to the BWB processing. I guess all you can do is try a couple and see. The way the 2 piece canning lids work is as the liquid inside the jar gets hot and expands the air inside is forced out and burps out of the lid and then as it cools the lid is sucked back down to create the vacuum inside the jar. Your bottles and lids probably won't work that way. Try a couple of your bottles just colored water in them and with the lid just screwed on finger tight. Then when you remove them from the pot see if the lid is more loose than when it went in. I think that would mean the air was burped out of the bottles. But keep in mind this is just guess work on my part, not tested. I've been reading up on "approved" hot sauce recipes. many of them call for substantially more tomato than pepper. is there a reason for this? it doesn't seem like any of them would be near hot enough for my tastes, even using really hot peppers. also, all of my sauces are stored in hot sauce bottles (woozy bottles), and my intention is to store at room temp before opening. if I bottle them boiling hot, in boiling hot bottles, would the suggested next steps simply be putting on the caps and tossing them into boiling water for 10-15 min? can anyone suggest a good pH meter for a broke college student like me, with a budget in the $20 range? can I just use test strips? A meter for $20 won't be worth anything. Good ones cost much more. Personally I'd use food grade litmus test paper. It isn't recommended for using on home processed foods because it can give false readings but then so can meters. The litmus test paper (available online and pharmacies) is approved by the FDA for food testing just not by USDA/NCHFP so do it with great care. I haven't tried using it in many years but if i got a reading of say 4.4 or lower i wouldn't have any concerns with eating it. JMO Dave

There was some dreadful wine-type beverage I purchased last holiday season that came in a frosted bottle - but I wouldn't drink a lot of it. I had trouble getting the lights in. I should have used a larger drill bit like the one suggested here. The first directions I came across suggested 1/2 inch. That's a tad small. I found a string of 20 LED lights at Big Lots just before Christmas. I thought the number was about right, and it had a plug on only one end. (many have plugs on both in case you want to assemble a long string of lights.) I saved the label as it was kind of a joke between DH and I, and he passed away after I purchased the wine, but before I made the light. The label is a re-print of an old bicycle poster with a naked woman holding a bicycle, flying through the sky.

Ours is much worse that the pictures and that's only 18 months into it. We've got chips all around the sink and scratches everywhere. Oiling it makes them fade out quite a bit. I was REALLY worried my DW was going to have a fit about it but she say's I'm more concerned about than she is. At first she was appalled (I talked her into SS) but I explained that it's soft and will age with us :) She seems to have taken it to heart as she doesn't even care anymore. I only cared because I thought she would, we're all good now. Our 1st X-mas celebration we had the wine bottles on the SS counter, when it was over there were scratches all over from people dragging the bottles across the counter. My sis put a giant plant in a ceramic planter on the counter and then drug it off making the 1st really BAD scratches. Actually after a while all the scratches sort of meld together and it looks fine. I still love it, nothing looks like it or behaves like it. One thing people will tell you is that you can put a hot pan directly on the counter, like oven to counter, and you can but......that spot on the counter is going to be HOT for a while so you have to pay attention. I started using trivets just to avoid the hot spots. SS is really something you have to want, it's far from just a nice looking slab of rock, it will change constantly over time and you have to be willing to except and even embrace it. It cost more than granite and even some marble (we have marble on one side of the kitchen and on the island) but it wears like a cheap sock depending on which variety you get. I would get it again, even after all the scratches people still marvel at it, we have really large and dramatic talc veins in ours. I also sand out anything that I don't like (200/400 grit wet, dry makes a huge mess). It's very easy to maintain.