Mead update

Mead update

The fermentation slowed to the point I decided to rack the contents and check the alcohol and sugar levels. The alcohol is at 8-10% and the sugar is still in the 22% range, which gives a slight alcohol taste and a LOT of sweetness left. In fact it's too sweet, so I decided to filter out all the blackberry seeds and pulp put it back in the jars and ferment it some more. Filtering out the seeds is just a matter of some cheesecloth and a funnel. Yup, made a bit of a…Read more …
Picking up another airplane

Picking up another airplane

Another student disabled one of my airplanes, so we had to go do a recovery run to Pismo/Oceano California. The propeller on our Tomahawk took a bit of a beating, and when there is the possibility that a propeller impacts the ground or a heavy object the entire engine must be disassembled and inspected before it can fly again. Since we can't fly it back, it had to come home on a trailer.   It was a nice day, sunny with a slight breeze and a temp of around 78 degrees. There was…Read more …
Continuing work part 2

Continuing work part 2

I did quite a bit this weekend and didn't think to get any pics of it. Just for the fun of seeing how it would turn out I stared the fermentation of 15lbs of red flame raisins in my main fermenter. It's just the raisins, a couple pounds of sugar for starter, and the yeast. I'll post more on it when I get the first taste and see if it was worth it. I also worked on the cast iron treadle base from the table project. I tried to braze one of the cracks…Read more …
Mmmmm…mead

Mmmmm…mead

We left off last night with our berries sitting in mounds of sugar and turning into something wonderful. Now it's time to pull them out of the fridge and take a look at how they are doing. Thats looking good. See all that juice? That's super food for the yeast, and it give our mead its flavor. The berries are good and soft, but they are still a little big for the yeast to process, so they go into the blender and get reduced to a thick liquid. All the juice and berries…Read more …
You need to make this.

You need to make this.

Hi kids, dads in a pissy mood today because thoughts of his ex-girlfriend are running through his head like a psychotic ear-worm. Thus, this post will be short but informative and then I'm going to go ride the f'ing cylinders off of my Harley up in the hills. This is a picture that leads to greatness... Thats right, I'm making a batch of blackberry mead (honey wine for those who don't know what mead is) some of which will be rendered down to blackberry eau-de-vie (raspberry liquer for those who think eau-de-vie is…Read more …
Watch Bench

Watch Bench

It's another post from the watch bench, continuing on with the Lord Elgin watch. In the last post about this watch I disassembled it and put a new mainspring in the barrel, and you can see that post here.     This is the plate that most everything else in the watch movement attaches to. It has gone through the ultrasonic cleaner a couple times and a quick look at the jewels show they all look good, meaning there aren't any cracks or jagged edges in the holes to damage any pivots that will…Read more …

Time to look at other properties

Unfortunately, even though I own my home and can use all the equity in it toward another piece of property, the lenders let me know that the property in the 'I like this' post is one I cannot qualify for. Such is the price for being unmarried and without a second income to add to the cause. Thank you to EVERYONE who had their fingers crossed on that one. Never fear, I will not give up and there is the perfect property out there. I just need to find it. Lol. To console…Read more …
Time spent at the watch bench

Time spent at the watch bench

Watch repair is different than time spent at the jeweler bench. Both are nice, but usually I'm in the mood for one or the other and last night I was in watch mode. Currently I have two watches and a clock in the works, one is a Rolex in for a cleaning for a friend but I didn't want to deal with the stress of expensive stuff, so I grabbed the other watch which is a Lord Elgin I bought off ebay. Overall, it's a nice mens watch with good lines on the…Read more …
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