wacky1980

i really don't understand people who don't like black licorice. just because it's not tooth-meltingly sweet doesn't make it shit candy.

well if this ain't euphemism for a loose asshole...

your hydrometer shouldn't bottom out unless the tube isn't full enough to allow it to float. try it with a tube full of water. should level out at 1.000 at room temp. anything <>1.000 could indicate a problem with the hydrometer. and if it still bottoms out when the tube is full, try finding a longer tube. as for the taste, i'm not sure when the flavor starts to settle in but i want to say 2 months is still probably kinda early for mead. don't get discouraged.

things are back to normal now. that was weird.

i have some pbw but i've never used it before. it's only a cleaner, not a sanitizer, so you still want to hit your gear with a sanitizing agent as step 1 in any brew day activities. as for the stuck fermentation, try to take a gravity reading if you have a clean way to do it. then take another reading in 3 days. that way you'll know for sure if fermentation has stalled.

it feels like my feet weigh 2x more than normal. maybe i'm just tired.

i very much dislike sitting at a desk, and i was in a bit of a slump last winter and started getting out of shape. an opportunity came up for me to get a new desk so i chose a standing one. i don't mind it a bit.

well now i'm thinking about your ass. it's a nice break.

i moved to a standing desk at work last winter. i was always on my feet when i was bartending so it was a pretty easy transition. gotta have a fancy anti-fatigue mat though.

the bottoms of my feet, to be specific. they don't hurt or anything. they're just putting out a lot of feeling and i'm not sure why. i've been standing for the last couple hours, but i do this every day and it wasn't until just a few minutes ago that i noticed my feet taking up this much room inside my sensory atmosphere. i swear i'm not on anything either, just a little caffeine. seems like something out of a small trip though. perhaps the fact that i started thinking about it is what's causing it to endure. maybe now you're thinking about your feet as well, and now you notice them being there and sending sense signals up to your brain. weird, man.

what kind of sanitizer? some of them don't have any adverse effects on brew. i like to use star-san because you don't have to worry about contamination. it regularly ends up in my wort in small quantities because you don't have to rinse it nor let it dry before using the gear. it's pricey, but a little goes a long way. it's possible that the fermentation just stalled. could have been a weak batch of yeast, not enough pitched at the start, temp is too low, etc etc. it sounds like you're making all the right moves though. as long as there's no sign of infection, i'd say let it go for a bit longer. maybe warm it up a bit. if nothing kicks back off by maybe thursday, maybe pitch the other half of that yeast packet on top. it's difficult to over-pitch but it's really easy to under-pitch. i put a full 11g packet of yeast into my 1 gallon batch, and i'll sometimes pitch 2 packets into a 5 gallon batch if i don't have time to start the yeast several hours prior to brew time.

wild turkey honey is popular, but i'm not sure if it's "good". same with jack daniels honey. if i want a honey whiskey, i just make myself a gold rush. whatever bourbon trips your trigger, fresh lemon juice, and honey (syrup). fuck me, that's a good drink.

glass is nice for this reason, and this reason only. well...that and it's easier to clean without etching the surface like with plastic, which creates bacteria wells that can survive wash+sanitize cycles. but once you're comfortable with trusting the process and measuring fermentation by other means (airlock activity, gravity readings, etc) glass starts to have drawbacks. it allows light in, which can affect flavor over time. and glass/plastic carboys are a bitch to clean compared to stainless vessels. but as with all things, the nicer stuff costs more money and requires more knowledge/skill to use effectively. i'm still fermenting in glass because it's cheap and accessible. but i'm eyeballing a nice stainless conical fermenter that can ferment up to 10 gal. that will be the fermenter i use for my e-biab setup, that i'm about halfway done building. hopefully this coming winter...

some of it is, absolutely.

i felt like participating in the making of the booze portion of this thread, so i talked wife into assisting in a small batch pale ale last night. it was a really simple recipe, just some extract and some azacca hops. i beat my initial gravity projection (was supposed to go into the fermenter at 1.070 but it actually started at 1.076...oh well!) and i over-scaled the batch a bit. when i built the recipe, it was for a gallon of finished beer. but these new little gallon fermenters didn't have additional head space to accommodate a gallon of liquid. i could only put about .85 gallons into it to leave some headspace, and even that was too much, as fermentation kicked off overnight and already has started to clog the airlock. so i have to find some 1/2" tubing at lunch and replace the airlock with a blowoff hose, before it clogs and goes projectile. i do have a small fridge i'm using to temp control my fermentation, which is a new thing for me. should help combat some of the occasional off-flavors i get when fermentation happens at a too-high temp from sitting on a shelf out in the open. if we manage to get this thing fully fermented, i'll be manually carbing it in a 1-gal mini keg. fermentation should wrap up around 7/13 and the carb process should take maybe 3 days total. if all goes well, we'll have about 3/4 gallon of homebrewed azacca ipa.

we've missed out on a couple lottery-based grants so far. we did get a PPP loan, but that ran out in the first week of june. i have one need-based grant app still out, but award notices were supposed to be sent out within 30 days and i've yet to receive any updates thru 40 days post-submission. and i have one more lottery-based app still out, and that submission window is still open thru 7/5 so we won't hear anything on that one til at least next week. our covid-related operating losses smashed through my personally-set limit last week, because we had to spend every last dollar to build inventory in advance of the friday re-opening. and some family members scraped together a gift to help us get there as well. we're hopefully going to start stabilizing now that the indoor venue is re-opened, but i fully expect we'll enter another shutdown in the next 30 days. when that happens, and with no gov't assistance to prop us up, that will probably be the end of it. whatever, right? businesses fail every day.

i don't make mead so i can't tell you just by reading this, if you'll need more fermentables to hit your target gravity. i know when i'm small-batching beers, i usually use around 2lb of dry extract or 3lb of base grains per gallon of water to get into that 5-7% range. so you're probably in the ballpark on that. the ingredients give me a strong cider vibe, which i think is probably good for a late summer/early fall mead.

it's literally a dirty wooden spoon. not worth the risk of contamination, unless you have very stringent handling & storage conditions. buy a yeast pack like a good homebrewer.

another round of grant applications has been submitted. still 0 awards. it's ok though, we'll probably get shut down over covid again well before they turn our power off.

ok, clear head and work-casual attire. i'm ready. 1. i have presented and represented my wood adequately to other board members 2. i have talked about my wood ... like, a lot 3. i will continue to talk about my wood, how well it holds up to a regular a beating from friends and strangers alike, and how often i need to rub it to maintain its strength and beauty

i'm not above serving people what they want, even if i'm ttly judging them for drinking it.

not much of a hard liquor guy, but i've been drinking the absolute fuck out of bourbon lately. and fireball is foul. don't put your body through that.

eat shit zoomer! i'll check in on monday.

no worries either way. just holler at me if you decide to swing by.

backwoods doesn't necessarily mean backwards. the only racists we have left around here are harmless old fucks who would probably cower in fear at the sight, and a handful of facebook warriors, most of whom we've run off for being shits. the indoor side is closed from covid restrictions. but the outdoor side is wide open, as long as you don't mind the elements.