Potable Pasta Puzzle

[Bishop]

If somebody can make a sharp kitchen knife using ordinary pasta...

Could pasta be used to make a water bottle and if so how would you construct it?

I ask because natural clay is thin on the ground around here and Julie said no to me getting a dozen pig bladders to play with. Sacrificing an old bag of pasta however in the name of bushcraft science she is cool with, so thinking caps on!

 

[daveO]

The old Italian prison shank.

 

[Robson Valley]

I've been making my own pasta for a decade. I thought that I could cook some sheets of pasta dough and wrap them around an inflated balloon to dry.
Pop the balloon, pull that out and there's your water bottle.

I'd bet that the dried pasta would be unacceptably brittle, even using store bought lasagna sheets.
I'd bet that the pasta would soak up enough water to leak and collapse in less than an hour, maybe 30 minutes.
Nasty, nasty stuff is water.

 

[Janne]

What if you boil it first? Will that heat treatment make it last a bit longer? 2 hours?

Water dissolves mountains!

 

[Robson Valley]

Just thinking about rolling my own pasta and watching it dry, even in a brief period before supper.
I intend to boil the pasta sheets, whatever sort it is, to make it flexible enough to wrap around an inflated balloon.

Then let the whole business dry hard before deflating the balloon.
I can't see it holding up. I can see it bursting in your pack before you get away from town.

 

[Janne]

Better to speak to your friendly butcher and get a pig bladder.
Or use a whole animal skin.

 

[Robson Valley]

I think that the proteins of a pigs bladder would stick to the durum semolina wheat proteins/egg of the pasta as it dried.
Pig-pee drinking water is NOT what I look forward to. Hence the balloon.

Members of this parish build waxed leather flagons for liquids which replicate history.
I don't see anybody messing with pasta and pig bladders.

 

[Tengu]

I would eat the pasta and use the bag to hold water.

 

[Janne]

I think that the proteins of a pigs bladder would stick to the durum semolina wheat proteins/egg of the pasta as it dried.
Pig-pee drinking water is NOT what I look forward to. Hence the balloon.

Members of this parish build waxed leather flagons for liquids which replicate history.
I don't see anybody messing with pasta and pig bladders.

I think it should be possible to tan the bladder?
Just like skin?

 

[Robson Valley]

I can't imagine why not. Different cell types ( eg squamous epithelium) but there ought to be some connective tissue in there as well.
Would a (foul) water flask or a wine flask have been a novelty or a necessity to carry?

 

[petrochemicals]

I wonder how long that 30000 edge lasted ? They say the acids in foods blunt steel at that fine grade fainrly quick. I would have said everything over about 1000 was quickly dissilved.

As for the pasta, if you try some sort of ch3mical reaction that may work, if you wish to use unatural means, 2hat happens if you mqke pasta with sugar or exessive salt ?

 

[Robson Valley]

Both the sugar and the salt interfere with the formation of the gluten polymers from the durum wheat(semolina) flour. (Gisslen: Professional Baking)
Too much and I'd predict that it would not hold together even as well as a real corn flour tortilla.

Store bought pasta is usually durum semolina and water, nothing else. Local deli bought a big machine, I want to learn how to use it.

I make pasta with a 50/50 flour of durum semolina and CDN hard flour (high protein) (600g) + 6 large eggs (275g/300ml,) and no salt at all.
Salt the water when I cook it. I'm surprised how delicate it is, dried, after cutting as linguini. Nothing like a good Raphaello sauce to hide the shrapnel.
My pasta would simply never do as a modelling medium for anything.

 

[Janne]

I find egg pasta too soft.
Prefer Bronze die durum wheat + water.

 

[Robson Valley]

Well, I don't have the desire nor the appetite to drop $40,000 on a pasta machine
which cam pump out Canadian durum semolina pasta at 15,000 psi.

More often than not, I roll the herbs into the pasta to match the meal.
The big, hot pasta machines dont do that. It just comes out like pieces of snot.

 

[Janne]

Mum used to make her own egg pasta. Cm wide strips. She had no machine. Bowl, cutting block and a large knife. Plus strong muscles.
She served it the traditional Czech way, with melted butter, finely ground poppy seeds and sugar.

I hated it. Hence my aversion to egg pasta.
Scarred for life!

You can buy an attachment to your mixer that makes spaghetti. Some even have Linguine possibilities.

Me, I let the Italians make them. They know all the tricks.

I never buy fancy pasta. But has to be Bronze die made. Prefer it to be a vehicle to transport the sauce into my mouth. The rough surface of the B.d. does that.
We can buy fancy artisan made Italian pasta here. With an insane, crazy price tag.
Wife did buy one of those, but only once. I got angry. She is a fast learner.

 

[Robson Valley]

I can make pasta on the bench with a pin and a knife. Mix the dough in a big bowl with a stick.
Just to know that I can do it, old-style. I suppose a person could stop at that point and fashion some sort of a container
but the straight durum pasta should hold up better than what I make.

Really fancy pasta in the deli's in the city isn't very expensive here.
I'd just as soon sit down to spaghetini as any shells or bows, etc.

I looked at the pasta making attachment for Kitchen Aid stand mixers. The price made me sick.
And, they are constant speed, whether you are ready for it or not!
I'm just clumsy enough with my fingers in all the wrong places that I need manual control.

I have used Atlas, Schule and Imperia home pasta machines. Mine is an Imperia.
It has a tighter and smoother gear set than the others. I have the spaghetti/linguini cutter head.
I like to make "stained glass" pasta with herbs rolled into the middle of the sheet and cut as linguini.
Wonderful compliment for birds of all kinds.

A wet night in a dripping tent, a big feed of pasta and sauce is the best ever.

 

[Janne]

The person in the original post / vid, has too much time on his hands.
The result is, to be frank, useless.

I think something calked ‘salt dough’ would be better.

 

[Robson Valley]

You want to start a new thread in Lovely Grub so you can preach the virtues of bronze pasta machine dies?
Less heat and precooking with teflon. We need a thread to trade insults.