me – Projects

May 30, 2023

Ethanol Sux a motorcycle post finally

Their lots of studies and opinions on the use of Ethanol in gasoline. My opinion is that it sux especially if you let your motorcycle sit due to outside factors. This is even more an issue with a metal gas tank on the motorcycle like my KLR650. Ethanol is hygroscopic and several studies show that no additive can fix this. Therefore if you let ethanol gas sit you are going to have issues as it pulls moisture from the air and sits until phase separation happens. Then the corrosive gel of water and ethanol goes to work. Lots of sources say less than 4 weeks for phase separation so a carbureted bike is even more at risk if you do not drain. DRAIN that tank and float bowl is the only real solution.

For reference. No Additive will help you completely.

The Issue:

High moisture fuel left in the metal tank causes rust and ethanol phase separation causes water ethanol gel to be trapped in the bottom of the tank making it worse. You know right by the petcock that feeds the carb, so It also plays heck with carburetors. Phase separation leaves that nonflammable gel in your float bowl to clog your idle jets too. I have not opened that can of yuk yet.

You can see below the rust collected from inside the tank, about 1/2 inch in the bucket. The funk in the tank before I started. The extra step to remove all the rust that turned white vinegar brown.

The Solution:

I hope this is the solution to my issues. The were several brands of liners but I just went with the amazon reviews. I am impressed so far as kbs-coatings support was very helpful. I did panic and get an extra 8oz of coating, but it was not needed. The KLR650 tank says it is larger that 5 gallons, but I have never gotten more that 5.1 gallons in it. I did as noted above use a extra pass with vinegar to remove all the rust prior to their RustBlast (Phosphoric acid and zinc phosphate pre-primer).

I have not cleaned out the carb yet. but that is a known issue and easy to do. knock knock. Well anytime you let it sit over 4 weeks you will get phase separation so you get good a idle jet cleaning.

The Results:

I got out the bore scope to ensure I got even coverage and that I did not need the second can. The KLR650 tank is an ugly shape inside, so it was hard to see otherwise. Here are some results. Fortunately the tank did not leak or had not rusted through. There are some thick spots in the welded seams that did bubble but look coated in the pit of the bubbles. There are two spots that look like the coverage is not complete along both sides of the saddle hump in the nose of the tank, but I don’t know that I can get the coating there anyhow. The vent pipe got coated too which is nice.

EthanolSuxTheResultFillNeck — EthanolSuxTheResultCheck

I also let the coating cure an extra long time as I was worried about temperature and humidity. It is TX after all. KBS coatings support was super supportive of my questions about the risk of temperature and humidity on curing times. Please be advised this is not a TX summer project. 55°- 82°F (13°- 28°C) is the recommended temp range for installation and low humidity helps as it is a moisture curing urethane. 6 hours till dry and 5 days to fully cure. I caught a break and got a mid to high 70’s spring morning with < 50% humidity right before a normal TX spring week of hot and rainy. I would have loved lower temps and humidity to get a longer working time, but was too chicken to do it in the house.

I just error-ed on longer to cure post install to be safe. Ok, I got caught up in life you know distracted…..Isn’t that what got me into this mess? Now what to do with two gallons of phase separated E10 gas sludge that I removed from the tank prior to cleaning. Glad it was not the full 5 gallons…:( how long did it sit to evaporate that much and rust that bad?

October 1, 2022

Car Camping is not a Motorcycle Post.

This is a trick, and is not a motorcycle post. I normally camp from my motorcycle. Something great about just going on your motorcycle and stopping for the night somewhere. I owe my friends a big apology for all the years of teasing them about the quantity of stuff they camp with. I’d show up on my bike with minimal gear and be a jerk about it. Well I went car camping and my car was over stuffed with gear.

I did not know I had so much camping gear. It filled up the trunk and the back seat. WTF? What is worse is I kept my normal small tent and gear which fit in one bag. What is all this other stuff?

Kabob on the hibachi

One advantage of car camping is you can bring along the hibachi. I love my little ceramic hibachi it gets super hot and stays that way. It is not camping if you don’t grill food at least one night. Sirloin steak, mushrooms, onions, and peppers make for some delicious kabobs, or is kebabs? I de-kabob’d the vegies to get an even cook, and can veggies be a kebab? We had a fire in the fire pit that night. I guess I could have cooked there and brought less stuff.

Car_Camping_Kabob_veggies — Car_Camping_Kabob_TheMeat

Galveston Island state park refresh!

Car_Camping_Galveston_state_Park_DunesIII

The Galveston Island State Park had suffered some serious damage from a prior storm and was updated and re-opened in January of 2022. It is very nice now. The facilities are new and very nice, but the picnic area and camp slots are very close together now. This is good as it leaves more room for the nature and it is splendid now. New rinse showers for the picnic area and new bathrooms. I miss the iconic old concrete shelters, but the new ones maintain a similar shape if not the big circular windows. The new stuff is more inviting to include nature in your view and block none of it. All while protecting the nature from human traffic.

Car_Camping_Galveston_state_Park_Showers — Car_Camping_Galveston_state_Park_Dunes

Why has it been so long since I’ve been camping? I need to fix my motorcycle and get out there. I got home so relaxed it was worth the trip.

May 26, 2022

Basket Weave Holster and Belt

My leather work only improves through practice, so practice i do. I saw this great YouTube video from Adams LeatherWorks who also sells beautiful holsters and magazine pouches as well as patterns which are available at https://www.adamsleatherworks.com. I decided I had to give it a go, and fortunately Tandy Leather was having a sale on culattas at my local store.

The Culatta from Tandy was pretty nice Veg-Tan leather, but I always try and layout personal practice stuff from the less desirable areas like the belly, so I can save the nicer portions for gifts for others. You can see that there was a ton of real estate left once I did a basic layout. I hope to share what the rest went too soon.

The pattern from Adams leather work was pretty easy to follow and like I noted above with a link. A great tutorial video on how it was created and how to use it is available. I really think buying the pattern was worth the under $10 kongbucks it cost for the results.

Tooling Practice, finish, and Basket Weave

BasketWeave_Holster_antique — BasketWeave_Holster_oil

I also got in some practice “tooling” a basket weave pattern on the holster. Really the only way to improve your tooling and stamping is to do it. I had to do several test pieces before I was comfortable enough to move on. Once it was no so wonky I did a oil and antique to the panels prior to assembly. I have referenced Don Gonzales’ https://dgsaddlery.com tutorials before which are also very great.

Assembly of Holster and Magazine pouch

I did saddle stitch the holster by had so the stitch lines did not match the pattern completely. I also joke around that I figured out why they are called pancake holsters as they look like pancakes prior to wet molding them to the gun. I need to practice my saddle stitching to improve the look, but the point of this holster is practice! I know the mahogany edges and purple thread were not the combination I envisioned, but like how it came out.

A Belt to match

A new basket weave holster would not be right without a matching belt, so I did a little more practice. I joked on Instagram that I need to go on a diet, so my future belts are less work. I did get lazy and sew the belt stitching on a machine so the thread is not a match. I also got some nice straps out of the culatta, so bonus. The stitching was not perfect but it still amazes me what a Sailrite LSZ-1 will sew. It got a 8-10 oz culatta strap with an 4-8 oz double shoulder liner sewn together. I’ll admit it was not perfect sewing as the 6-ish mm (about 1/4 inch) barely fit under the presser foot and needle. I did not feed the belt smoothly it would vary the stitch length or break the needle. Oops! I am really wanting to try the new portable servo motor upgrade but cannot justify the expense when I can hand crank. I got the Sailrite as I wanted portable. If I continue to do thick leather maybe giving up portable for a cylinder arm machine may be another option.

Not a bad result considering it was my 3rd holster attempt. I am proud of the outcome but see things I can improve on. Having a multimold gun to form the holster is nice, so I don’t have to wet mold leather around a gun. I will need to expand beyond the 1911 commander, so either more multimold or blue guns are in my future.

Like I said I’m proud of the results of a third holster attempt.

January 12, 2022

Hydroponic Garden Automation and Monitoring

Normally my hobbies get mixed up. I had been playing around with Home Assistant to automate my house. Yes my projects are always on the shoulders of others, and the Home assistant folks make a great open source tool that is mostly easy to use, and runs on a RaspberryPi with a pre-built image. My Hydroponic Garden got two great advances from this, Automation and Monitoring.

Background for independent automation

Reddit is surprisingly great community for hobbyist you can find lots of useful hints there. I found this one about Topgreener Wifi Smart Plugs that were available on Amazon for a great deal. They stopped selling the 4 packs and sell the 2 packs for the same price as 4, so no link. It mentions you can use the tuya convert to update them to ESPHome without having to crack them open and “upgrade” the firmware manually. Another user also provides information on how to get the Energy Monitoring working. The best part is once you upgrade them they no longer require talking to the “mother ship.” Home automation without the cloud or proprietary apps that call home.

Automation upgrades

The Hydroponic Garden got its own dashboard to control the automation of the lights and pumps. This is a much better solution than the old plug timers that would not keep time after a power outage. My neighborhood suffers from poor power reliability, but since all the devices run network time. It gets reset after outage so my lights run consistently.

Monitoring Upgrades

The upgrade of the firmware on the Top Greener TGWF115PQM plugs was super simple after reviewing the Reddit post linked above. This allows me to monitor the power used by my HydroGarden and ensure the Mars-Hydro lights are not getting too old. I’m still running my original burple reflector lights from 2018, so if it ain’t broke no need to fix it. They are still very good lights that use under 250 W and Home Assistant provides great graphs to track the overall Total Daily Energy consumption.

I also get to monitor the Temperature which is why Hydroponics is a winter only hobby for me. I cannot pay to heat up my house with LED lights and then use Air Conditioning to cool it down and remove the excess Humidity. This is provided by a ESP01/8266 and a DHT11 temperature sensor that I got from Amazon of course as the shipping times direct from China are still broken. I would love to not pay the amazon tax and get directly from AliExpress since they have the same vendors.

HydroGardenAutomation_esp8266_DHT11 — HydroGardenAutomation_esp01_DHT11

Well yet another reason I’m a of all trades and master of none. Hobbies require too many disciplines to be the best at any one.

January 1, 2022

K40 gets some long overdue upgrades and testing

I have had some upgrades sitting on the shelf for a long time for the K40 laser cutter I got years ago. Some have been around since I originally got the machine, but I wanted to get all the life from the stock parts. I finally installed them.

The upgrades.

LightObjects Air assist head
18mm ZnSe 50.8mm FL lens
fresh 20mm primary mirror
5mp USB camera for Lightburn

Just a short list but they make a big difference over the stock 12mm lens and head. I got them installed along with a 5mp camera to pair with Lightburn to assist with object positioning.

K40_overdue_updates_camera — K40_overdue_updates_head

If you are not running Lightburn software with your laser cutter. You should be. It is bar none the best with very responsive development team. I am a big supporter of open source, but pay for the license to support those guys. It is worth it, and my contribution via renewal barely buys them beers. You cannot go wrong for the price and what you get with a responsive development team. They read their forum and answer questions. The great folks at LightBurn also make their 3d model available for the 5mp camera holder, and will sell you one from their store if you don’t have a printer. It was a bit too tall for the LightObject Air assist head, so I had to go low profile with this model from Prusa Printers dot org. I’m still fiddling with the knobs on the calibration but visual location of cuts is going to be a game changer. I can cut small object from scraps now.

Testing the new Stuff

K40_overdue_updates_test2 — K40_overdue_updates_test3

Prior to the upgrades my K40 had issues with living hinge cutting. It may have been my settings or focal length setting. However the new Air Assist head and Z-table combined to make a great hinge with minor scorching which was my big issue before. Charcoal does not flex well. Big shout out to DenzilMakes.com for the great test file box. You should check out his very nice work. There are lots of cool designs on the site. It made it look easy because he did all the hard work. There are even instructions on assembly available via his blog.

Sneak Peak for the future.

I did this long over due blog update while I was waiting for a fresh compile of OpenCV. I have been wanting to Open Computer Vision to convert stereo images to point clouds for a long while, for 3D modeling of real life. Well as a cheapskate, I could not justify buying a 3D scanner or Stereo Camera. What to do? Well check the parts drawer for what I have. A plain RaspberryPi zero and a RaspberryPi Zero W had been gifted to me years ago by a friend who wanted more power. I had some “Original” V1 camera modules to, well maybe they are knockoffs, but I cannot tell. The final physical piece was an OTG data transfer cable for cell phones. This will provide better resolution that my failed ESP32CAM attempt. I really should document failures too.

I got the basic Pi on the network by connecting it to the Pi W via the Ethernet gadget. I followed Adafruit’s guide for the most part. I had to do static IP addressing on the USB0 network on both of the Pies, and a little iptables forwarding. Note do not forget to enable forwarding in the /etc/sysconf.conf. I got everything working, after fighting with the camera cables a bit.

I then used Max Davaev of PiKVM’s great ustreamer to get the cameras accessible to the network for stream capture. This low latency streamer is just the ticket for the lightweight Pi’s, but full frame rate video may be a bit much for the available memory. Single image capture however is very responsive at full resolution.

I worked on my industrial design and worked on a FreeCad parametric model of a “case” for the things and it only took 3 revisions to get it usable. The cameras are 66mm apart or the normal human eye spacing, but the design will support up to 110mm for better stereo vision. I didn’t cut out the lens opening for the wider setting, but the design is parametric so one edit on the spreadsheet and a re-export and conversion of the STL into a SVG for the laser cutter. Props to tinker cad for the easy conversion from stl to svg via import and export.

K40_overdue_StereoCam_v03 — K40_overdue_StereoCam_assembly

I hope to update once I get some point clouds captured and converted to meshes. I hope to spawn the mesh processing onto the ARM BigLittle cluster which recently got a OS upgrade. end of word vomit… I saw a great makers site that is short sweet and too the point. I should really copy that style. “raw data for raw nerves“

June 9, 2021June 9, 2021

Never enough Falafels

I learned today the plural of falafel is filfil according to wikipedia who knew. Well however, I can never have enough. I occasionally make them as a meal prep as they freeze well and can be hot and delicious from the air fryer in the time it takes to heat up a #10 tortilla to make a wrap. I just never make them often enough.

2 cups dried chickpeas soaked 24 hours
1 1/2 onions
1 head of garlic
1 bunch of cilantro
juice and zest of 2 limes
1 tbsp-ish turmeric powder
1 tsp of cumin
2 tsp baking soda
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup gram flour or besan as a binding agent instead of wheat flour.

Note: I always borrow the best parts of other people’s recipes, but as recommend everywhere. Stick to dried chickpeas or you will be in for disappointment.

It is just that easy. Throw it all in the food processor and blitz until it is the desired texture. This batch was a little smoother that I prefer because, I almost forgot the garlic. How could the king of never enough garlic almost forget. haha… I also add a touch of Besan or gram flour as a binder as needed instead of wheat flour. It is not gluten free if you put it on a flour tortilla to make a wrap, but could be, if served as not a wrap, since chickpea flower is gluten free. Remember to let the mix sit for a minimum of 1 hour in the fridge to set up. It helps prevent falling apart during frying. The 2 oz portion scoop from the Ace Mart restaurant supply makes the perfect size falafel, and drops them right into the hot oil with minimal splash.

I eat them as a simple wrap with baby dill slices and bean sprouts. a side project of hydroponics was sprouting mung beans for sprouts to have on hand. They keep better than store bought if you sprout your own. I have also been digging Hellman’s roasted red pepper sauce. It has a great pepper flavor without the heat of sriracha or sambal. It is a great change of pace. Since I have been on a fermentation kick maybe hot sauce is on the project plan…

April 14, 2021

Raspberry PiCase Overkill

Scope creep is a project issue many of us have. I always creep when I decide to mix media of my hobbies. This one gets 3 of the many hobbies.

I started with the idea to build a simple plywood box to carry a Raspberry Pi and some associated tools for on the go hardware troubleshooting. What did I get? A leather wrapped treasure chest of troubleshooting tools. I wanted to have a “pirate chest” motif with a “sample case” style flap opening that could hold the keyboard and tools. It had to highlight the “edge grain” of the plywood too. I may have gotten close on the aesthetic I wanted, but the scope creep made this more than a simple case.

The Contents of the box before cable management.

Raspberry Pi 4 8G
JYE Tek DSO Coral Oscilloscope
Bus Pirate V3
fx2lafw compatible Logic Analyzer
USB C/HDMI Full HD LCD from KYY
40000 mah USB C power brick
USB mouse and keyboard
probes and cables.
3.3v and 5v compatible USB TTL serial adapter
breadboard and 3.3v and 5V adjustable power supply

The Raspberry Pi 4 is setup with the stock OS with my favorite Sigrok and pulseview setup for the fx2lafw compatible logic analyzer. Sigrok/Pulseview is my go to tool for troubleshooting serial, i2c, and 2 wire things. I have also added my buspirate v3 inside the case for good measure, but don’t mess with JTAG much anymore. Arduino IDE is also installed including the ESP32 and ESP 8266 stuff setup as well. More on those projects to come.

PiCase woodworking

I wanted to highlight the “edge grain” of the plywood, so I used my Milescraft saw guide to cut the 18mm (3/4 inch) Baltic Birch plywood into strips and re-laminated it back together to make panels that show the “grain.” That inexpensive saw guide amazes me with the consistency and ease of use for the small price. I then box jointed the bottom for extra glue area strength and inset supports for the contents. I left the top open so the leather skin could wrap and form a rounded top. I also decided to skin the outside of the wooden carcuss with 3mm Baltic Birch plywood for extra support of the leather. Of course I used Danish Oil on the wood because it highlighted the layers.

PiCase Leather work

Springfield Leather Company always confuses me. I bought a 2-3 ounce grade “D” veg tan leather side to use for structural reinforcement for some other projects from them. It was nice enough that I started dreaming up this leather case. The description definitely under sold the quality of this 33 square foot discount side. It will make great stiffeners for other things, but made some nice “show” panels for this case. I could not justify cutting up the bend area to get the brand mark on this case, but thought about it. These mostly clean panels came off the shoulder area. I love leather for the character that it was once a live animal. If I wanted perfect I would use vinyl.

A quick swipe with the strap cutter to make some accent strips and some Fiebing’s Pro Dye in chocolate. It made the accents and I tried a new Renia Aquilim 315 contact cement to assemble and attach the panels to the case. I do like the water based cement and did not have to get “high” to make this project. Saving the last few brain cells is always good. I added some copper cut nails as accents to add to my pirate motif, as well as some snaps and a buckle to keep the sample case flap closed. I of course treated the leather with my Leather Balm V0.1.

PiCase finsh

It was a fun project that started from a simple idea to a joecad 1 cm = 1 inch scale drawing. Oh yes, I mixed metric and “freedom units” in my build. I initially did a FreeCad mock up of a wooden case, before unrolling the leather and getting scope creep and deciding on changing my design from a simple plywood box to a leather wrapped treasure chest of troubleshooting tools. I may consider adding a TS80 USB Iron to the kit, but that is just more scope creep.

It will not replace my “lab” workbench but it is mobile.

March 19, 2021

Leather Balm Batch V 0.1

I really like Smith’s Leather Balm, but I cannot justify sending an 8 dollars starter tin to everyone I make a leather item for. I know you can get them in bulk at a discount, but as I am still trying to justify a startup and if I’m going to sell stuff. I’m a tight wad. I recommend their balm you should try it. However if your like me. Monkey see monkey do making I decided to try my hand at making some balm. I started with the Wikipedia recipe for British Museum Leather dressing variation with the neatsfoot oil as I had that on hand.

50 g Bee’s wax
20 g anhydrous lanolin
30 ml Neatsfoot oil
5 ml cedar oil
50 ish ml of custom corn degreaser

Making the British Museum leather dressing based balm

LeatherBalm_Lanolin — LeatherBalm_beeswax

It is pretty simple to make. Just weight out the ingredients. More liquid oils can make the finish product a bit softer at room temperature. Melt the wax and lanolin in a “double boiler” and add the other liquids. Remove from the heat and add the solvent while stirring constantly. I skipped the hexane of the true British Museum Leather dressing and used some custom corn based degreaser which resembles “moonshine.” It is sourced by a friend and so I don’t ask many questions. It is great for cleaning parts, and is cleaner in my opinion that off the shelf isopropyl alcohol. I used the “cut” version about 80-ish proof. It is also less toxic that hexane or X-4 solvent. I also used less solvent as I did not want it to flash off to much even if it has a higher water content. I ordered some little 1 oz tins from Amazon which is the perfect size.

Leather Balm V 0.1 results.

I tested it this first batch on a very dry 1-2 oz veg tan leather made into a luggage tag. It did not darken the leather too much as you can see on the left treated vs untreated on the right. It did however do a nice job of softening this very dry leather. It is a little flaky in consistency in the tin, and I suspect some other essential oils may be added in the next batch, as the cedar oil has a strong smell. I may even rip off smiths and use some sweet almond oil as I like that smell.

I will use up this batch and see how the results compare to other treatments I’ve tried. I’m also working on a source for bees wax as I see some woodworker’s paste wax recipes coming soon too.

February 27, 2021

Holiday Pocket Journal Covers

I continue to work out processes to improve my leather craft and have been toying around with the idea of a little side business selling products. One big factor in doing this is to get consistent results. I decided to go and make a batch of Holiday pocket journal covers for my family for the holidays. Learning experience as I got distracted and it was well into February before they were in the mail. I did learn a ton on consistent crafting and process.

Die cutting with a clicker press

The first step in my learning process was to really utilize steel rule dies and clicker press. I am still working out using the laser cutter to make my own steel rule dies, and it is a slow process but now that I have a few sets of import dies. It gives me an understanding of what I need to do to get this working.

This project used a Journal cover from LEETHER Store on Aliexpress It was well made and inexpensive. They are a great resource and shipped my selections almost next day, so the delay from China was not too bad. I also used a clicker press from amazon, as prime free shipping saved me a boatload over direct from China ordering. I want one of the Weaver master tools Mighty Wonder presses, but my hobby budget cannot afford it Yet. The more I use my current dies and clicker the more I learn what I want in tools.

Holiday_pocket_journal_covers_clicker_results

Holiday_pocket_journal_covers_clicker_dies

Holiday_pocket_journal_covers_clicker_size

Holiday_pocket_journal_covers_clicker_remnants

Holiday_pocket_journal_covers_clicker_press

Leather Edge Craft

Holiday_pocket_journal_covers_edges_internal

I have also worked to improve my edge craft. I did a light burnish on the interior exposed edges prior to assembly using Tokonole. That stuff is magic. A little slicking with the Tokonole and then a polish with some canvas cloth and a rubbing stick.

A touch of water can be used first to really get a slick edge. See the main photo of the assembled covers edged. Slicked with water and then Tokonole with the drill press burnisher from Pro Edge Burnishers who’s website sadly has the 404 of sadness. I hate to see small business go, but the current pandemic climate has been hard on folks.

Journals Final Assembly

I made a glue template to reduce over gluing the pieces, and used some Barge contact cement. Once the glue had dried. I stitched the edges with the thread color of my family’s choice. I still need to work on my edge guide and straight stitching. The pen loops caused a bit of an issue with consistency. I was stitching at the limit of my Sailrite Ultrafeed lsz-1, even with the walking foot. It had a hard time with the slippery and stiff vegetable tanned leather during layer transitions. I think I could do some minor bobbin tension adjustments to get a better underside stitch, and some foot pressure adjustment to get the missed stitches during transitions under control. The transitions near the pen loop on the pattern are 3 layers of 4-5 oz leather and gauge right at 7mm (0.275591 in)assembled. The Journals are all 5.5mm (0.216535 inches) most other places but have a slope towards the edge due to the inside pockets. I will have to skive the pockets in the future for easier assembly. I have sewn thicker belts 6.5 MM (0.255906 inches) which is above the published limit of the Ultrafeed lsz-1, but all one consistent thickness. The Salirite Ultrafeed lsz-1 handles those belts perfectly especially with the monster balance wheel.

Sailrite also has some new SD1 point needles from Schmetz which may tear out the veg tan less with the new point shape. I’ll have to try some out as the DIA i’m using does tear the veg tan on exit just a bit. I some times use round point if it is too bad, but those break sewing heavy leather.

Once I got the stitches in. I did a quick 3d printed embossing stamp for each family member’s name and embossed their journal cover. These are created in OpenScad and Tony Buser’s OpenScad Bitmap Font’s Module. I update this module to mirror the text and then use my clicker press to emboss the name onto the journal cover.

Per usual I do a coat of Smith’s Leather balm and you can see in the photo how it brings out the beauty of the vegetable tanned leather. The three on the left of the rack have been balm’d and the 4 on the right are naked and pale, as are the ones in the stitching color photo.

Finally I trimmed some covers on some pocket journal sized fillers and loaded them up. I trimmed the covers as it makes it easier to insert the Pocket Journals which are 90×140 mm or 3.54×5.51 inches, into the covers without too much bending.

Holiday_pocket_journal_covers_Smiths_leather_balm

Holiday_pocket_journal_covers_glue_template

Holiday_pocket_journal_covers_stitching_color_choices

Holiday_pocket_journal_covers_embossed_name

I will likely do one more batch test before committing to actual sales of these.

February 12, 2021

Fermentation is delicious

It is kind of an update on an old hobby. I used to dabble in home brew a lot. I love beer and like full bodied beer you just could not get around here. So I used to home brew double and triple bock and the occasional oatmeal stout. I realized it encouraged me to drink in excess, so I don’t do it as much anymore. I can splurge at the grocery now and get some great full bodied sixer from a “microbrewery” now instead of brewing a 5 gallons batch and being drunk all month. I still make an occasional batch of ginger beer, so it was just natural I started fermenting other things.

The love of German and Bavarian style beer can lead to only one thing. Sauerkraut! I have been working out a consistent ratio for the spices and a way to get naturally fermented sauerkraut. I also don’t cook it in the end as I like the light crunch. I even eat it cold.

I think I have found a stable ratio of 2 percent salt by weight of cabbage. It gets the right amount of salt and once it draws the moisture from the cabbage it has enough liquid to ferment great but not be too salty. I have as always liked fennel and caraway in my kraut, so why not both!

Finally as a nod to my fermenting of Kimchi too. I take half of my “Bavarian” style sauerkraut and add Gochugaru or the dry chili flakes to some and becomes the perfect mix of sweet and spicy delicious. The perfect topping for a lazy hod dog meal.

So along with the sauerkraut I might as well ferment all the things. Daikion radish, carrots and cauliflower, I’ll ferment almost anything into a pickle because it is delicious. I have not made pickles yet, so I hope for a bumper crop of hydroponic calypso cucumbers this “season”

You know living in the “international district” of my town I cannot help to mix cultures it is the American way, so butterflied and fried spicy boudin with Bavarian style sauerkraut with Gochugaru. I wish you could taste how delicious this combination is. I’m going to have to go to the local red BBQ truck to get more boudin.