The first try at homebrew soda didn't work out. Altivo suggested trying champagne yeast rather than baker's yeast. Looking around, I found a source in the Twin Cities and asked sistaur to see if she could obtain some Lalvin EC-1118 (another site says it's, "Also great for carbonating sodas.") since she was going to be sending a parcel anyway.

That parcel arrived today, with the new yeast. I've started another bottle and am now in the waiting stage, again. The baker's yeast will get used for bread.

I did go to the store to get some more vanilla. As this is still just experimental, I went with the cheapest artificial vanilla. Curiously, it was the only vanilla that didn't have corn syrup in the ingredients list.

Current Mood: hopeful

The attempt at vanilla cream soda didn't work out all that well. There was some vanilla flavor and there was carbonation. There was also an overwhelming yeast odor. It swamped and ruined the vanilla flavor. I sampled it. Twice. jmaynard sampled it. I dumped it down the drain.

I have started another bottle, going lighter on the sugar and the yeast, and leaving a smaller air gap in the bottle. If I can get the yeast smell down to a tolerable level and still have carbonation, then I'll consider things a real success. As it is, well, who wants yeast soda? I certainly don't.

Current Mood: disappointed

Poll #2190
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

If Vakkotaur had a twin...

Current Mood: mischievous

( So, which one? )

Current Mood: amused

Yesterday morning I started a bottle of what should hopefully be vanilla cream soda. This morning the bottle is more firm. That is, harder to indent by pressing it with my thumb. Some bubbles or foam can be seen at the top the liquid. It'll be another day, at least, before it's ready but it is progressing. I'm tempted to start another bottle, but I think it'd be better to wait and see how the first one turns out.

I was getting a bit impatient about detecting any activity last night so I followed the directions on the yeast packet. Well, sort of. I only added a little bit of it to some warm sugar water and didn't notice any activity right away. That doesn't mean there wasn't any activity, just that I didn't notice it. So I added the rest of the packet and waited. And for a while I thought nothing was happening. Then I realized that surface I was looking at wasn't changing (bubbling) bit it was rising and the sugar water was growing a head of foam. Yeah, I haven't done this before and it showed.

With the yeast started, even though the expense was small I didn't care to just dump it down the drain. I did a quick web search for single-loaf bread recipes and found a couple. I settled on this one and went to it. I learned a couple things. One is that the multi-loaf recipes do make sense. If you're going to do the work to make bread, you might as well do a bunch at once and be done for a while. And the other is more a confirmation. Freshly baked bread is dangerous as it's way too easy to eat a lot of it. Even the heels of a loaf are good then. Normally they're just endcaps. My supper was (too much) buttered bread. Also, either I need to have the oven hotter or (despite the claims of the recipe page) pre-heat the oven. Even adding some baking time the bread didn't seem quite done. Certainly not bad, but just not quite what it should have been. For my first attempt at leavened bread "from scratch" I'll take it. I will be doing this again, just not right away. Once I get things right, then I'll see about variations.

Current Mood: semi-accomplished

From Fark commentary:



<Tweety>Aw, did we bweak their widdle bwains?</Tweety>

Current Mood: amused

I don't know whether to be depressed or amused. There is a group calling itself "Accountable America" targeting Republican donors with threatening letters in an attempt to limit donations to 527 type organizations. Well, not only has it been exposed for what it is, IowaHawk has given them a good sending up with the letter he supposedly received from them, This is Your FINAL WARNING.

Current Mood: uncomfortable

Yesterday I wandered across a few things fermentation, or at least home microbiology, related. In the first couple, alcohol is the point of it all, in another the big deal is not ethanol but lactic acid, and in another there is some alcohol but the real point is carbon dioxide.

Years ago I would occasionally read the goofily named site kuro5hin, but it pretty much disappeared and after a while I didn't really expect it to come back. Turns out it's still around after all and there are a few interesting articles (and a lot of nonsense) there. A couple recent ones were on making wine, of sorts, and beer - both with the emphasis on simplicity. I like simplicity. But I also like quality, and those don't always go together. For example, the wine article is Brewing Your Own Hobo-wine on Today's Subprime Mortgage Budget which isn't exactly encouraging. Hobo-wine suggests, well, not quality. And the line, "let's just get lit!" makes it plain that taste isn't a big consideration. That it's just water, sugar, and yeast says it's purely about alcohol, though the author does actually include fruit juice concentrates and uses table sugar as a boost so there is something to it. Still, it doesn't seem terribly appealing expect on a "prove to yourself you can do it" level. I also can't help but think of the hideously bad homemade wines mentioned in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin.

A bit earlier the same site had an article, Brewing Beer on Today's Subprime Mortgage Budget which also was more about simplicity or at least being on the cheap, than anything else. The memorable lines were: "Throw out any preconceived notions of style or brand. We're going to make the AK47 of beers - cheap, reliable, and works with sand in it." This is likewise not encouraging. Simplicity is great, and lack of expense is wonderful, but taste is important.

Later, I happened across a web site mainly about dairy products. Various pages tells how a people can make their own buttermilk or at least extend a culture of it, and the same thing with yogurt, and once a person can make yogurt it's not a very big step to a simple cheese. Interesting, but while jmaynard likes buttermilk, I don't see the appeal. And he's content to let others deal with its production. I have about the same opinion (let others do it) with yogurt. So it'd most likely be more of an experiment than anything useful for either of us.

However, that site isn't just about dairy products. There are also pages about ginger ale and root beer and the mention that other flavorings can be substituted. The batches can be rather small: a single two-liter plastic bottle's worth. This seems if not more interesting, perhaps more reasonable to do. Granted, I hardly need a sugary drink around, but at least it would be a sugary drink and not a corn syrup thing. And I get to choose the flavor. First would be something mentioned, such as the root beer, ginger ale, or vanilla cream soda (the root beer article suggests that). Then once I've proved to myself that I can do it and it works, I can play with the flavorings some. As the author mentions, there is some alcohol in the end product, but so little that unless one has a medical or religious restriction it can be ignored.

Thus tonight I bought a couple 2 liter bottles that will be emptied in time, some sugar (I had run out a while ago and made a conscious decision not to get any more just then), and some yeast. Chances are in a few days I'll start with an attempt at vanilla cream soda.

Current Mood: thirsty

In the last several weeks I've found that my caffeine intake had crept up quite a bit. About a week ago I think I really noticed it. I had a headache that didn't go away until I had some caffeine. Not good. I don't think I truly got away from caffeine for any real length of time since RCFM and perhaps Penguicon. While I don't avoid caffeine at conventions, for the last few years I have been largely avoiding it at home. So it was time do Do Something About It, again.

I started about a week ago. I restrict myself to one cup of caffeinated coffee in the morning. Any more can be decaff. And I bought a six-pack of 24 fl. oz. Diet Dr Pepper and had half a bottle at lunch and the other half at supper. I finished the last bottle today and so bought an eight-pack of 12 oz. bottles of Diet Coke (there were no six-packs in that size at the store) and I'll have a bottle with lunch for the next week or so. Then I either drop the non-morning caffeine completely or ease back with another week of those little "sawed off" cans of Diet Coke. After a week of just the coffee, the caffeinated coffee will stop as well.

While at the store, I also picked up a couple 2 liter bottles of caffeine free pop, as I expect I might have some cravings for something carbonated. And once I'm finished with those, I'll be keeping the bottles around rather than toss them in the recycle bin. They will be useful for a little project.

Current Mood: determined

While wandering around the web and various journals, I happened across a post about the term toxin which lead to a filk-ish result. And as regards the last paragraph, yes I have thought about how silly that opening line is.

Current Mood: amused

The last few days I've seen the term "gun culture" thrown around and it bugged me. I've figured out why it bugs me. The term "gun culture" is equivalent to the term "gay agenda." Really. Both are used by the ignorant and fearful to demonize that which they seem unable to comprehend. Both signal to me that the person using the term doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.

And if the title of this post made your head explode, perhaps you shouldn't look here or it's likely to happen all over again.

Current Mood: annoyed

For some time I didn't ride the bicycle. This was for various reasons, laziness included. One of them was that the rear tire had a slow leak (which seemed to have disappeared when I checked again this Spring) and I wasn't sure just how to go about getting the rear wheel off of the bike and then changing the inner tube and reassembling everything. It's a ten speed and the thing looks complicated and I recall hearing people having seemingly endless trouble with the shifting mechanism. Go ahead and laugh now, get it out. I now know just how silly that all is. This evening I had to change the tire and tube.

I was out riding and things were going along fairly well when there was a *BANG* and I knew right off that the rear tire was no longer in working order. Looking at it, it was no simple thing that a mere patch might fix. The tire itself was truly worn out in a spot and even if the tube were patched, the patch wouldn't even last the trip home. It was a nice enough day and I wasn't very fair along, really, so I expected I'd walk the bicycle home and deal with things. Instead, an older gentleman, who was outside and heard the tire blow, was friendly but insistent upon seeing the condition of the tire that I let him give me and the bike a ride home. Rather than stand around arguing against it, I agreed - after telling him that I didn't want to have him go out of the way and it wasn't a big deal for me to walk. So I got a ride home. The fellow was once a milkman in town and so had some familiarity with most of the town, though he admitted he isn't as certain about some places as he used to be, it all being so long ago.

Once home, I looked at a few web pages on changing bicycle tires and dealing with rear tires on multispeed bikes. I'm not sure if it didn't occur to me to check the web years ago, or if there weren't as many good web resources then. After looking around a bit and seeing the same information in a few places I went to it. It was almost as easy as dealing with the front tire, which I had done a few weeks ago. The changing of the tire went a little easier too, perhaps due to the previous experience, perhaps due to the weather being a a bit cooler and rather less humid. Getting things back together was fairly easy. I spent quite a bit of time fiddling around, but the only real trouble was being sure that the tire beads seated properly without pinching the tube. And I was quite glad to have the new tire ready and waiting, rather than have to wait for another order to come in. I did go for a short ride afterward, to be sure of things. Evidently I did it right. I didn't have to walk home.

( Pictures of the blowout )

Current Mood: accomplished

I'm not dining on Chinese cuisine today. I'll leave that for folks who are superstitious or such.

Current Mood: full

I wear a helmet when I'm on the bicycle. It weirds me out a bit when I'm out on the bicycle and see someone not wearing a helmet riding a motorcycle.

No such luck, I know. It seems like they ought to be, as they've been in the news for far too long.

Oh yeah, new icon. Seems fitting in a few ways.

Current Mood: tired

A McCain presidency would be, in essence, another term of George W. Bush.

An Obama presidency would be, in essence, another term of James E. Carter.

The United States of America...

This poll...