AmericanLongRifles Forums
General discussion => Contemporary Accoutrements => Topic started by: TENdriver on July 29, 2008, 03:08:25 AM
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Are there any tricks for avoiding the Horn flavor when using it for eating utensils, cups and storage containers?
Kevin H
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Does it smell like horn too? Maybe scrub it good with baking soda and water paste?
T.Albert
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The horn smell only happens when it's in contact with liquid.
Smells like wet dog. A really dirty stinky wet dog. Not the best aroma for food and drink.
No smell the rest of the time.
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Smells like wet dog. A really dirty stinky wet dog.
Horns are imported into this country by overseas shipping containersful. They are raw horns, as hacked off the cow, with the core still inside. They are rotten and stink. Do you know how that horn was cleaned and sterilized before you got it? And you're going to drink out of one? ???
I think I'd be boiling the $#@* out of it before making a drinking utensil and then only drink alcohol out of it. Maybe that's why they call them rum horns and not coffee cups.
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Any liquid with alcohol will pick up horn flavor. Jewelers here in Norway who make high end viking style drinking horns with silver or pewter furniture allways line the inside of the horn with a pewter insert cup.
Best regards
Rolfkt
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Could the inside be sealed with some kind of wood finish or similar product and still hold up to liquid?
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I painted the inside of mine with epoxy. Once epoxy cures, it is just another plastic. I get no smell, or taste of horn.
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They also make food grade epoxy.But it dose not look traditional.
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Drinking vessels made from horn can be cleaned by filing the vessel with liquid bleach and letting the vessel sit for some time. Traditionally beeswax would be a good lining for a horn drinking vessel. Beeswax works good for cold drinks, but does melt when used for hot liquids.
Randy Hedden
www.harddogrifles.com
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Several times I have been told that there are food grade epoxies that can be used to line horn drinking vessels. I have gone so far as to email the manufacturers of the recommended epoxies and they all tell me that they would not and do not recommend their products for such applications.
Randy Hedden
www.harddogrifles.com
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I guess it's from years of branding and dehorning, but the taste and smell don't bother me at all. Heck, barbecue and a big ole pot of frijoles seem to taste better with a little burnt hair and scorched horn stirred in for seasoning.
I'm not being silly. I imagine that after weeks and months of working plews and scents, game and livestock, all the while wearing the same clothing kinda affected your sense of smell and taste. I imagine a little horn taste with your rum was kinda refreshing.
I'd say buck up and get used to it.
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I do not know how to avoid "horn flavor".
Here, in Argentina, some "mates" are made of horn.
Considering that we drink "mate" at 75-80ºC it must be a problem here but I have drink horn "mates" without noticing any flavor.
As long as I know they boil de horn for some time before using it.
I will ask.
Martin
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Are there any tricks for avoiding the Horn flavor when using it for eating utensils, cups and storage containers?
Kevin H
Skip Hamaker uses brewers pitch to line his horn cups.
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Don't know if this helps but a friend of mine uses a product called Envirotex Lite to coat his leather canteens with. I have just ordered a product made by General Finishes called Salad Bowl Finish to put on my bowls. It's labled food safe when dry. might work? I found it in the wood turners catalog.
George
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I'm with Randy...not too sure I want to do anything with epoxy and food.
I've heard of the salad bowl finish. Never used it because I like to use mineral oil for my bowls. I thought that the salad bowl finish was also just oil based.
We have a salad serving set made from pewter and probably an imported horn, but never noticed any smell while using it.
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Very simple- use what all the rest of us use- STYROFOAM- people used horn at one time because they didn't have any plastic cups- horn is nasty- makes good powder carrying implement. PINYON
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use brewers pitch doesnt shrink like beeswax as it cools, beeswax will crack, you can get brewers pitch from jas townsend, and other places i cant recall right now
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I've been a trekker for almost 10 years, now, and my drinking cup is a crudely fashioned affair I made from a horn that was lying in the pile at Dixon's Gunmakers Fair several years ago.
After trekking with this horn mug for several yearsI can tell you three things.
1. If you seal the mug with bees wax you will end up picking congealed bees wax from between your teeth the better part of the day you pour hot tea in it for breakfast.
2. Hot beverages pick up more of the horn taste than cold.
3. The only way I have found to remove the horn "flavor" is to fill it with rum or brandy and drink quickly.
Best Regards,
John Cholin
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If you have a strong smelling cup it may be a spring cut horn versus a fall cut horn in my experience they have different impacts flavor wise. Some say I'm nuts though.
Lining with pitch can help, but then you get the pitch flavor (pine) also what you get from Townsend is pitch not brewers pitch. Brewers pitch is black not yellow and stays soft. It is pitch mixed with sulfur which rather like vulcanizing rubber for a tire keeps it flexible. One thing to keep in mind is that horn is sort of the original teflon, pharmacists tools were made from it for ages since nothing sticks to it (at least not well) and you will get chipping and peeling of anything you put in (which is why the food grade epoxy folks are backing away).
As mentioned earlier, hot has more taste then cold beverages, and the longer you let it set the stronger it tastes. But you can let the cup stand with water in it and see if it gets an oily film on top you can try and soak it out. Dry corn masa (fine corn meal from a mexican grocery) can be used to pull residual oils out as well. (You use this to take grease paint out of leather and costumes in theater.
While I love beeswax for alot of things, I don't recommend it for drinking cups, it collects stuff, and melts onto stuff at the most annoying moments.
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Add four oz. of Alaskan Everclear,two oz. of Peach Schnapps,a little rattlesnake venom,that otta get you there,er,take away the taste. Easy on the snake juice,it has a parylizing effect!
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The horn smell only happens when it's in contact with liquid.
Smells like wet dog. A really dirty stinky wet dog. Not the best aroma for food and drink.
No smell the rest of the time.
"Yummie" :D
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Well said Long John! :D
Got it! I"ll adjust my persona to that of a very succesful gun builder who is rich enough to own a silver rum flask! ;D