I have acquired some picobrew machines cheap / the original Zymantic, the Z series and even a new picostill. The Zymatic had [past tense 🙂 ] a leak, because the original seal that connects the internal bucket to the pump cracked over time, silicone don’t last forever.. This would create two issues:
a pretty substantial leak anytime the pump wasn’t working
slow pump return
I took some quick measurements and 3d designed a better than original fix, it was 3d printed in TPU.
I have linked to the part that is available to download and a youtube video so you can see it in action, thanks!
So up to now this Blog site has been dedicated only to Beer Brewing, but I am going to start expand it a little bit into my vintage Audio hobby as well, so with that, this will be the first post.
A few years ago I have purchased a pair of EPOS ES14 (with one original blown tweeter, I knew this) and one of the things you learn with vintage speakers, especially highly sought after in the category of Cult following, is that when a driver breaks, especially a custom designed driver that is no longer manufactured – these are considered almost 100% un-obtainium and really the only way to get more drivers is to either buy another pair of speakers, broken or not and you hope to salvage something out of this, the things you do to stay in the Cult!
So with that, I was left with either this option or…… learn 3D CAD and designed my own baffle and 3D print them – which is what I did. I ended up using some spare tweeters that I had on hand from a different project that I ended up doing nothing with, so I ended up using some Peerless 4ohm ( BC25TG15-04) 50 watt and I paired these with a 4.7uF capacitor (after playing with some other values) and it came out super good, better than original.
I first printed these in PLA, but later switched to PETG, because it seems to be stronger and also more UV resistant, incase speakers would be placed by a window and getting direct sunlight.
with that, after verifying everything and fine tuning and going through about 7-8 different test prints, I then decided to offer it for Sale on Ebay / so customers in either a same situation as me or maybe just when people wanted to try some new Tweeter combinations.
Some advantages over the original tweeters is that /// the original was mounted behind the tweeter baffle most likely by design, but lots of improvements have been achieves since the late 80s and with the new baffle we can completely avoid any Baffle Diffraction or Edge Treatment and the sound is no longer so centered on axis as before.
Now a lot of people say that this will change the speaker, and in- fact does change it but for the better, much better.. and you have an option to choose your own driver, and material type, as I prefer soft dome tweeters over metal dome, just my preference.
I have tested these to people in complete blind testing and people were left speachless and that was with a fairly inexpensive proof of concept driver.
In the future I am planning to upgrade with a Seas tweeter and maybe make another version of the 3D baffle to true fit whatever driver I am end up selecting.
With that – if you have interest in purchasing these from me you can find them on Ebay or if you like to buy them from me directly, please Contact me, thanks!
To Date I have helped and sold 5 pair / my hope is to raise some money to buy a better printer soon as well. The 3d design plans are “not” for Sale, thanks!
This winter I’ve brewed a 10-gallon batch / more to come including the recipe I followed and how I mixed yeasts ( kind of unplanned ) but beer came out awesome…
Posted inBEER Recipes|Comments Off on Belgian/French Saison Winter 2023
after fermentation was over – 2 months old, tastes great!
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
The pour sample (picture below) of our wine from this year / when it was being transferred to secondary fermentation. It came out superb in color and taste! Of course it is still not even finished, but a good sign at this stage.
I choose this grape when I was first starting out for their resistance to disease and able to survive harsh winters. Last two year I let it go totally wild with no Management of any kind and the more I do that, the better the wine gets!
a Quick YouTube video is below after I have transferred from Primary to Secondary fermentation…
I have not brewed any beers in at least 5-6 months, simply because it takes much longer to go through what I brew and I also drink other craft beer, since social interactions have become less frequent with people due to Covid-19 – time has come to brew a new beer!
A few good months ago now, Mute Dog brewing has hooked me up with a few different yeasts, one of them is a Abbey Culture, a wild yeast “originally harvested it from honey I got from a neighbor of mine in 2012”, other characteristics:
” it’s also quite fruity, maybe leaning toward pineapple, but mostly just generically fruity, like bubblegum “
” A lot of saison yeasts express a somewhat assertive black peppery phenol. Mine is more subtle, like mild clove and vanilla. “
” Oh, it’s also very highly attenuative, so whatever you make with it is going to end up pretty dry. Expect FG to be 1.006 or below (maybe a bit higher if you make a huge beer, but not much higher). “
” Also, it’s highly alcohol tolerant, it has produced beers of 12-13% with no problems. I used it to make a sake and it went to 20+% “
” I’ve run it from 48-105°F it doesn’t seem to care. It goes a bit faster at warmer temps, obviously. “
” It’s good in Saison, though maybe not as spicy as some might like it. Great in Beire de Garde, also makes an excellent Wit, Dubbel, Tripel, & Quad. Also tasty in cider. “
At first the yeast was slow, it was in the fridge for a while, so it took a few good days to come out of sleep, but once it did, it started to move nicely.
about a week later it finished and here is a quick sample from under the microscope at 400x magnification, the slide was actually dirty, but I just wanted a quick glance… btw even at 1,000x you bearly (bears, hehe) see the inside structure of the individual yeast cell, you really need much better microscope, but optical cuts off at about 1,000x without loosing quality.
Almost a month later, the fermentation is over with FG-Final Gravity of 1.006 / starting gravity SG was 1.064- this should be a solid 8% Beer! Now we are going to age them, we got a total of 10 gallons clean beer….
Here is how the yeast looks after all the beer was removed (bottom of conical fermenter), yes yeast was collected to save into some empty jars and stored in fridge for next time.
Conclusion, there are risks with Wild yeasts, but if you find the right stuff and you are willing to invest the time and effort into it, you will be beyond rewarded, life is short, take more risk!
On 2/12/2021 – I brewed a 10 gallon batch of Storm Surge Baltic Porter, rated at 9.6% ABV. This beer has a large grain bill, as in expense, almost $70 just for the grains.
Also reused the grains and reboiled for 30 minutes, with whole homegrown hops added to the mash tun, to get a 5 gallon batch of lower ABV beer around 5%, which is a great technique to get more beer, literally for free.
I will post the full recipe details later, but some details:
About the Mash: 90 Minute Mash at 148F, at end of Mash the temp fell to about 142F, so then slowly started reheating to mash-out temp of 165F, an extra 25 minutes.
Mash-out picture:
Posted inUncategorized|Comments Off on next Brew – Baltic Porter
This year yet again we pressed some asian pear and mixed apple juice to make hard cider. I used a press that a friend of mine has access to via membership through a local tool library in Seattle, but I recon you can also buy one if you will press enough apples or use it frequently to justify its expense.
Here we were pressing some juice from mixed asian pears from a single nice mixed grafted tree, it produces one 5 gallon bucket of pears which give us about 2 gallons of juice:
you notice the light colour from the pear juice compares to a different colour from the apples:
To Make either apple or pear hard cider is easy…. you can use any fermentation container really, even growlers and if you don’t have an air lock, simply put some aluminum foil over it, the gas will escape and prevent anything going inside, the positive pressure should prevent anything going inside as well.
Crush and put some campden tablets into your fermentation container and let its do its thing for 24 hours, and allows gas exchange so that sulfur dioxide can escape. This process will kill any bad things from the collecting process of the pears/apples, bacteria and wild yeasts.
you can use many different yeasts, including wine yeasts.. some people naturally ferment it with natural yeast, but this is more risky and you never know how it will turn out, as each time the yeast and results could be and will be different…
After 24 hours, add your yeast of choice and let it ferment. To clear later you can cold crash it in the fridge for the cider to clear up, and there are many different natural agents you can add to clear up the cider as well, such as bentonite clay.
You can even transfer to another container and leave any sediment behind to further finish the fermentation and help to clear up the cider, which is recommended. Once all done, you can naturally carbonate with priming sugars or force carbonate with co2 gas if you already have this equipment.
So this is basically a regular Blonde Ale recipe using a Scottish yeast, the Scottish Ale #1728
this yeast is pretty versatile, we did the Scottish Scotch Ale previously, so wanted to re-use it in something else and also save about $10 – a good house yeast – https://wyeastlab.com/yeast-strain/scottish-ale
grains for a 10 gallon batch:
20 lbs of 2-row Premium ( use a local grain if able and keep this beer regional )
1 lb of crystal 15Love
hops:
1 ounces of Willametter hosp at 15 minute to end of boil and 1 ounce at end of boil
yeast:
Scottish Ale #1728
OG was 1.052 for a beer about 5.5%
total cost of grain and hops was $36.30 / we had the yeast from last brew so re-used, save money…
In addition to the primary brew, for the last year – we have been re-boiling the primary grain at 1/2 volume, so 5 gallons, adding whole hosp (its a mushtun so its ok) and you can even add a little bit DME, we added 1/4 lb to bring up the ABV% a bit. This nice #hack allows you to use different hops if you want and even different yeast using grain that you normally throw away – Yay to #freebeer
Yes, this beer will be a lighter body of the primary style, but it almost becomes a completely different beer in it’s own right, if I didn’t tell you it was a re-boil, you wouldn’t know anything different.
OG on the re-boil was 1.032 for a 3% beer.
Posted inBEER Recipes|Comments Off on Scottish Blonde Ale
