Part 1.Choosing the best particle & particle quality.
Well where do we start? Probably with getting the terminology right when it comes totaling about particles. What does "Grade" mean? does it mean size,how easily it splits when cooked, quality(always a hard term to describe), or the series of stringent tests that its only good for the local tip or good enough for humans to eat? Yes you guessed it it's the last one I mentioned.
This is the most important detail when buying particles both for myself on a commercial basis and for you the angler. Buying the better grade goods not only will help your catch rate, but also ensure fish welfare and the health of your bank account. Sounds odd but often the higher grade goods are actually cheaper! But we'll go into this in more detail later as to why this is possible.
All pulse, corn, root nodule (e.g. tiger nut), nuts and so on or as anglers call them "particles" have to be graded. In all cases there are simple grades with grade 1 obviously being the best. Some particles have grades up to number 6. Probably the best example I can give of where you can really damage your wallet, the fish and have a crappy catch rate is with the ever controversial "Tiger Nut" which comes in 4 grades.
· Grade 1, Human food grade"my cotoxin tested"
· Grade 2, Human food grade
· Grade 3, Feed grade
· Grade 4, Animal feed grade"ONLY"
When you consider that the aquatic environment is probably the most versatile yet sensitive ecosystem on the planet this grade system has to get you thinking. 1&2&3 are pretty clear cut as they are good for humans to eat. But what's the difference of grade 4? Well frankly not a lot as far as anglers are concerned as this grade will normally get incorporated into cattle, sheep and pig feed in the UK.
So what grade should you buy?????????????
“Well at least grade 3 but aiming for grade 2 & 1 human food grade”
By now I recon you think I'm mad as I'm recommending food grade particles. Here's the interesting part............"If it's human food grade it's VAT Free and this saving is generally (but not always) passed on to the customer wherever possible.Remember though that VAT is a big mine field and ASK,ASK, ASK what the grade of the goods are is the best advice I can give.
If in doubt always ask the supplier what grade they are supplying. Don't be shy as if they can't answer that question then you may have other questions you need to ask yourself and the supplier first before you buy. As I said earlier the closer to grade 1, the better the goods are.
Size of particles is a big grey area. What's a big, large, monster or giant particle.Let's keep it simple folks! If the firm cannot state the size of"screen" they passed the particle through to get the size then they aren't processing the grade 1&2 particles in house. Screen size is what dictates the finished particle size you get. What I call monster others call large & so on, but I know what the sizes of the screens are that we use. If the firm doesn't know the screen size used then chances are they don't know the grade either and are just buying in and potentially buying grades 3 onwards.
Part 2,Equipment and How to get the most from it.
Depending on how much you need to prepare there are many ways to end up with a prepared particle. Either a simple pan on the cooker at home or a full gas burner setup in your shed or garage. As explaining how to use a pan on your cooker at home would be a bit daft, the equipment I'm going to explain and how to get the most from it will be the full gas burner setup. Not only will I be talking about the equipment but also providing links to other websites to purchase your equipment from should you wish to make your own setup.
Firstly there’s the key component "the burner". Not cheap, but not hugely expensive either when you compare how much use you will get out of it and they last forever being made out of cast iron. The firm that makes the best ones are FOKER (no that's not a spelling mistake!) and come from Italy. You should be looking at around £25-£30 +P&P to get your hands on one. As you would expect what you get is purely the burner no pipes, no regulator and no fittings. I've always found the cheapest and best place to get regulators,pipes and fittings is the local boat yard. So if there’s a Canal near you 9times out of 10 there’s a boat yard to go with it. These burners can be used both with Butane & Propane, the choice is yours and makes little difference other than cost of the gas. So in order to plumb in our burner you also need the following:
Natural gas hose in 8.5cm rated "HIGH PRESSURE",jubilee clips and a regulator for the gas bottle make you choose. Choosing the right regulator is up to you! So now it's just a case of a bit of simple DIY to connect the burner to your gas bottle. Remember if in doubt always ask the advice of the gas bottle supplier/boat yard for the correct fittings and pipe specification.
Ballpark figures for money spent so far should be:
Burner£25-£30
Hose£1-£2 per Meter
Jubilee Clips 40p-50p each
Gas Bottle £50 upwards depending on size and Deposit for new bottle
What we need now is a suitable pan for our "monster" burner setup. The burner mentioned above is 12"x 12" and will take and heat up to 4 gallon pan. EBAY is our friend at this point. Catering pans can cost an arm and a leg and well over£100 each when new. But we're not interested in looks we just want a big pan.Do a search for catering pans, catering equipment, pans etc and you'll get lots of hits on EBAY. If possible get them with lids as this reduces your preparation time by a mile.
OK so we've got our Monster burner setup and some huge pans and we're ready to get cooking some particle baits. One of the big mistakes when using this type of setup is to go mad with the amount of particle added to the pan. A 50% water to50% particle sounds sensible but this is not the case. Always use 1:3 particle:water. This allows for good circulation of the baits in the pan and steam loss giving you perfectly cooked bait. Circulation is the important part as bait's sitting still closer to the bottom of the pan cook faster and you'll end up with some cooked and some un-cooked on the top. Also with more water once it comes to the boil the particles cook faster too saving you money on gas use. Towards the end of the cooking make sure to keep stirring your particles as the water content reduces in the pan and avoid over cooking the bottom layer. A broom handle chopped in half makes a cheap stirrer when using big pans. After cooking is complete you need to be aware that certain particles can be left in the hot water to cool others need to be strained straight away and get the best bait. This will be covered in Part 3.
So how much has this cost you in total? Probably in the region of £100 as a guesstimate. Sounds expensive at first but how many jars of Dynamite hemp could you prepare in just half an hour? Starting at £7 per 2.5L jar of Hemp you would need to cook only 17Kg of Hemp to start saving money. After that point the only outlay you would have is to buy dry particles and a £25 refill of the gas bottle once a year (or longer).
FOKER gas burner, pipe, regulator & jubilee clip stockists (one stop shop)
http://www.gasproducts.co.uk/
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Preparing perfect particlesThis article was originally published in forum thread: Preparing perfect particles started by Giles View original post
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