Home brewing - whatif

So, I've started home brewing my own beer, yay, and I've been having a bunch of "what if" questions. These questions and their answers are collected here, in no particular order; some of the answers may not be strictly related to the question so I suggest clicking through them and reading a bit more of the original. Simply use your browsers search function to power through the list.

1. What if my brew gets too cold during fermentation:
1. If it is below the temp that the yeast goes dormant, you will halt fermentation.
2. What if I pitch too hot:
1. If it's too hot the yeast will die and not do anything.
2. It can cause the yeast to produce unwanted off-flavors in the beer.
3. What if I spill tap water in my wort:
1. The only time you have to worry about any infection from water from your tap is if it touches an unclean utensil/nozzle etc.
2. By their sheer numbers, 99.99% of the time the yeast will starve out the bacteria.
3. As long as you pitch even remotely healhy yeast, you're fine.
4. What if I open the fermenter during fermentation?
1. You can easily introduce a rogue organism that may sour the beer
2. You can do it, just do it quickly, and make sure EVERYTHING is sanitized...
3. Once the beer is beer...its' less of a chance of a problem.
5. What if I leave the beer in the fermenter for too long? 
1. As long as you protect it from light and keep it as cool as possible (less than 70F-75F-ish) it should be fine.
2. I do not transfer my beer from primary. You can leave them for months with little flavor impact.
3. What you really want to do is make sure attenuation is finished, then give the yeast a little more time to clean up their byproducts.
6. What if I scortch my wort?
1. Scorched sugars are unfermentable so the beer will be sweeter and have less alcohol than intended after fermentation.

So, I've finally been admitted into the local University. Now all I need to do is the orientation and get my classes....Hopefully I can do this.

Love it.

Turns out Mamma Gkika is a hulk. Edit: she's not a hulk....She just changes colors a lot.

Hard Knocks.

Other day I met a woman with working hands.

Heh.....Oops....

Almost forgot I had this.....Not much to say really, I just finished reading:

The practice of being aware, right now, every day
Buddhism
Plain & Simple.
ISBN: 978-0-7679-0332-5

Solid read. But I'm probably going to have to read it again. Another I've read is:

No Beginning, No End
The intimate heart of Zen
ISBN: 978-1-59030-811-0

Another good read and yet another I will have to re-read.I'm trying to read more stuff this year, I've got a bunch of other books I need to plow through....Up next is:

Zen Training
Methods and Philosophy
ISBN: 978-1-59030-283-5

Oh, heh...Yeah...

Oh, heh, yeah....Forgot I had this....So what’s new? Actually not much of anything really. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this but I’m Buddhist now but only in title alone, I don’t do a lot of the social things I’m supposed to but I’m working on it. I chose zen because I feel I need a lot more structure in my life and zen practice helps me along with that.


I’ve picked up art again, art in general, to help give me something to do that’ll put me mind at ease. I chose sumi-e because while it’s on the surface very simple it can go into great detail. And though it is simple it is by no means ‘easy’. Expression with sumi-e is very subtle. It’s going to take a bit of getting used to.
A while ago I had purchased a drawing tablet and had wanted to use that for sumi-e however I just can’t seem to recapture interaction between brush and paper with with a pen and electronic tablet. I guess it may have something to do with them being two completely different mediums or something....Way too complex for me.

From Welcome to the N.H.K.

Classes....I haven’t really been doing very well in classes. Sometimes I’d sign up for some and then withdraw from half....That’s just me being lazy but I think I can no longer afford to be lazy. I’ve already wasted so much time....I’ve started watching myself, if that’s even possible, and have come to realize that a lot of my time just goes up into the air. I don’t really do anything with it...I’m not enjoying myself or in any kind of duress, I just move along day by day in a daze.

On the other hand I’ve got a new rice cooker, which is great because now when I cook rice I can just clean it, and leave it. When I make rice I try to do it as mindfully as possible – concentrating on the task at hand rather than letting my mind wonder off and do whatever it is that it wants to do. It’s difficult but it feels ‘right’.

From Welcome to the N.H.K.

In addition to a rice cooker I've been trying to cut out a great deal of the meat I eat. And to help me with that I took the liberty of getting a slicer, you know those long knives that are normally used for slicing meat. Here are the knives I have now:


Cutting out a lot of meat is only half of it. The other half is cutting out sugars, to help with that I've found Japanese "Umeshu" which is about 87% sugar, the rest is alcohol.

From Welcome to the N.H.K.

So monday....

Classes start....So I'm excited and disappointed about that. I've been reminded that I am not the smartest person I know; I signed up for a class that I've already taken and passed - by the time I realized what had happened it was too late......However this'll save on books as I've still got the book....That let me finally get around to getting something that I've always wanted; a white board...But now I don't know what to do with it. I suppose I can use it for planning and homework or whatever



I've been browsing youtube a lot recently and have come to realize that there are few/no channels that explicitly go over my field of study (linguistics) however there are a lot of exhibitionist omniglots and some of them are actual linguists and one of them comes close in that he showcases various language however he doesn't really talk about the science behind it all. No one has made a video version of the wikipedia entries revolving around linguistics and I thought: Maybe I can? I'm no where near an authority on the subject but I figure if I do my homework then it can't hurt so long as I cite my sources, present the pot, and keep my hands out. I donno...I've already reserved some channels now I just need to set out a lesson plan and so on.

I don't think I have a good TV voice/personality.



A friend of mine has been doing a little thingy where they draw sleeping people on the train. Their goal was 1,000 drawings. Today they got to 1,000 so I'm interested in knowing what they'll be doing after that.

I've been looking at more languages and have found hindi. Hindi will be the hardest language I'll have to tackle. The alphabet is a syllabary that kinda acts like an alphabet....A syllabic alphabet? Hold on, gotta figure out what it's called...Hindi uses Devanagari which is an "abugida alphabet" which, in laymans terms, is an alphasyllabary which is kinda what I said it was.....You're gonna have to look that stuff up on your own....Or maybe I'll make a video about it. Most/all of the alphabet, in this book, is described using linguistic terms and that's what sparked the search of youtube for linguistic videos and the idea to make my own.....The language also has sounds that I don't think exist in English, this'll make listening practice "difficult". Despite this there are a lot of slow paced videos online to listen to.



I've been trying to live without the phone for a couple weeks now. So far so good. I just use it as an alarm and then ignore it the rest of the time. Don't really think I miss it but I still know i have it with me in case I need it....I need to go all the way with it.

Lately I've not been cleaning my house.....I've kinda fallen into a stupor that I need to get out of. I did do dishes yesterday though...