All posts by fash

First day beer brew course

Today i started my first day brew brewing course at t’wort wat

After making mediocre beers, by myself .. using beer kits and so on.
I really wanted to make propper beer.
Fresh base ingredients, from the base up.
I wanted to know what i was doing and why..

Update 2022: I’ve made many beers since, together with Monique and Coline.

Makgeolli

(I made makgeolli multiple times, pictures are of multiple dates.
I started with a workshop at a hackers event called OHM2013)

Much like sake, a fermented rice ‘wine’ .. see other post

Makgeolli is a traditional Korean alcoholic beverage made from rice and nuruk culture. In this workshop we will prepare the single fermented makgeolli called “Takjangdzu”. We will focus on a proper rice preparation which includes proper washing, drying and steaming (or boiling), cooling and subsequent inoculation of the rice by the active culture in this case nuruk. If everything goes well we will also harvest the takjangdzu which was already pre-prepared and taste it. The alternative options to using nuruk as a culture will be discussed, suggesting either kōji (Aspergillus oryzae) or yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae).

>Just quick one. I have checked the recipes which you shared with me quickly. The first recipe is close to the todays industrial style of production of Korean Makgeolli or the Japanese style of "rice wine making" because it uses koji                                                                                                                                                                                    
                                                                                                                                                                                 
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspergillus_oryzae                                                                                                                                                               

>The second recipe uses steamed rice (that is what we do at Susubori) and yeast. Using just yeast is not usual for Korea, we for example add yeast in addition to nuruk (for 1 kg of rice (chapsal - sticky ric
e recommended), we use 90 g of nuruk and 3 g of yeast (baker yeast I assume, no one knows which really annoys me). We wash 4-8 times the rice in cold water to get rid of the starch, let it steep for 2.5-3 hou
rs, dry it for 40 min and steam it for 20-25 min. Cool it down for 30-40 min to room temperature and transfer to the fermentation vessel (leave around 50-70% free place for air so 5 l wide mouth container suits well), add nuruk (90 g of wheat based nuruk, there are many different types) and yeast (3 g baker yeast should be fine) if you like and 1 l of water (rice ratio to water 1:1, that results in sweater type
 and more viscous beverage, if you go 1.2 (water):1 (rice) than you get dryer and more acidic beverage), mix well but gently not rupturing the rice grains, making sure that the nuruk falls apart             
                                                                                                                                                                                                              
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapai                                                                                                                                                                            
                                                                                                                                                                                                              
>Let to ferment with slightly "open" lid on the container for 3 days, mixing every day properly, after that let to ferment for another 3-4 days (max 5-7 days all together) and taste regularly and harvest when you feel it is right. The harvest is basically straining the mixture through the "fine straining bag" and bottling. Bottle the liquid leaving around 10-15% of the bottle to air (carbon generation can be quite vicious) and keep refrigerated.                                                                                                                                                                                
>Anyway I hope it helps, by the way the recipe above is for single fermented makgeolli which takes in total less than 7 days and is more prone to be sour than the double fermented one.     

To brew your own:

Ingredients:

Directions:

  1. Soak rice in tepid water for 1 hour
  2. Cook the rice until it is about 80% cooked.
  3. Allow the rice to cool
  4. While rice is cooling break nuruk cake until small pieces and mix into water until it turns a mud-like color.
  5. mix in rice
  6. transfer mixture to an earthen jar (if unavailable a plastic jar will do just as well)
  7. cover jar with a paper towel, or light cloth and allow it to ferment for two days
  8. cover jar with lid and allow to ferment another two days
  9. stir the makgeolli twice per day throughout the whole fermentation process.

Bottling:

  • Add one tablespoon of sugar per liter of makgeolli to each bottle
  • Filter makgeolli mixture through a cheesecloth and pour through a funnel into each bottle
  • seal bottles if possible, and refrigerate until ready to drink

Serving:

  • To be traditional, transfer your makgeolli into a kettle, and pour into a small, bronze bowl
  • Add water to taste

Fixing an accordeon

In our folkband i play also the Accordeon.

I only know a few songs on this, but i needed to learn at least one to play in our band. This is in honour of my mother who alway encouraged us to play musical instruments.

This accordeon was het one she and her sisters learned to play on when they where young.

In 40+ years some things needed replacing!

Started using Spotify in 2013, what have I used before?

We all love streaming our music, I didn’t at start.

First some history.

My parents had a record player, but they were not that into music.
(Toon Hermans, Fons Janssen, Cliff Richard, and because of my little brother pan music from Costa Rica, but almost never have these been played)
Pre-1984 I got some LPs: Michael Jackson Thriller, Normaal and some Classical LP I found on a fleamarket. (I didn´t know what I liked apparently)
Well maybe I did, whatever the music was, it had to have something technical good.
Then i started playing Bagpipes.
Around 1984 I got some cassette tapes from the PipeMajor who taught me the pipes.

  • Silly Wizard
  • Battlefield Band
  • Tannahill Weavers
  • And several PipeBand cassettes

And I got a cool Japanese music tape from my Martial Arts teacher.

Oh my … the stuff I’ve got on my fileserver

I’ve played the heck out of these tapes in my room.
I seldom listed to the Radio

I had something like this, the speakers on the side could be dissattached and connected with a longer cable) I think it was a dual tape.

1992 – Started buying CD’s
1996 – Studied data compression/codecs etc. became interested in mp3 (See other page)
1997 – Converted all my CDs to MP3

All LP’s and Cassettes have been converted over the years.

After a few years I wanted to have non-lossy files.
Made ogg and Flac files.

2009 – Bought a Logitech Media Duet (still have it in 2023)

This allowed me to stream my MP3’s from my fileserver. I’ve bought many other logitech squeezebox devices.

A hack i made https://www.henriaanstoot.nl/2009/10/23/onkyo-web-control-hack/ in 2009

Many web streamers and managers have i tested in the years:
Ampache, Jellyfin, Funkwhale, Mpd, kplaylist and more
Made a MP3 server for work (Badly Designed Sound Machine) (see other page)
A webgui for our shoutcast server (Icecrew)

2013 – Started using Spotify, but not a lot of Folk/Pipes, luckily that changed.
But I still like to own the music.
Made a (now defunct) spotify ripper a while ago.
There is still a lot of music not available on spotify, but you can add local files to your Spotify interface.

Ordered a powerbank, got a drugs delivery? (not really)

I ordered a powerbank a while ago, which had to be shipped from china.

I got this, and tought “I’ve been scammed”

A adaptor without label/manual and NOT what i’ve ordered

So i send a mail to the place i’ve ordered from, this was their answer.

You need to unscrew the adapter, in which you will find your ordered product.
Your product has been shipped in this way since they can still be difficult at customs.
And then the shipping will take longer again.

Opening the adaptor:

My order