Thanks for sharing! I had planned for a DWC setup if I ever got into hydroponics, but I’ll let it be for now

Ooooh, those lids look fantastic! You don’t have any mold issue or anything by not weighing them down when you use those? I keep getting floaters especially seeds that like to mold out even when I weigh things down (I’ve gotten better at it but still happens often enough to be a bummer). Immersion blenders are magical things.

Most of the time I’m making habanero batches, followed by jalapeno or thai peppers. My hometown has a great farmers market so if I visit and happen to be there during pepper season I’ll make it a point to grab fistfuls of peppers. I use a 5% brine most of the time because the math is easy to do in my head. I was doing 7% for a while but it stalled out the ferments too often. I like long ferments; usually 2 weeks minimum up to about 10 weeks, average I’d say is 4 weeks. I’ll put at least peppers and garlic in all my ferments. Onions are common, I’m trying carrot for the first time, pear a couple times, and mango once. Sometimes I make a little cheese cloth baggy filled with mustard seed and peppercorns too.

After fermenting I’ll add in honey, lime juice and/or apple cider vinegar, some of the ferm juice, fresh peppers (usually bell of a matching color), caramelized onion, and a pinch of MSG. Usually ends up being about 15% total weight is ferm juice and 25-30% total weight is acid (lime/vinegar). For the honey I typically use a garlic or pepper fermented honey. I was adding a drizzle of oil in during blending to help emulsify it but I think I’m going to stop doing that it only kinda works and with all the garlic I’m worried about them botching out.

I do tend to keep some of the ferm juice on hand and then before bottling I’ll boil them and add ferm juice as needed to keep the thickness correct. Pour them in the woozies while hot and flip the woozy upside down to seal/sterilize the lid better. I design and print little labels too!

Here is one of the ingredients/ratio lists for one of the ones I made a while back that was a crowd favorite, I think this one was a 4 week ferment but I forgot to write that part down…

Thanks! Yours is so much more refined and feels complete.

very fascinating thank you, may have to try this out.

I’ll have to track that down, thanks!

hey, fair enough.

I even brought my Mom out to a couple local breweries to show her how I get flights of beer to taste. Only a few ounces each and I don’t finish those that I don’t like. None of the macho BS of not leaving beer behind. I can walk out of some places with 8oz or less in my fat gut.

Becuase Randy Marsh used it as a defence during his alcohol phase

For what it’s worth, I’m 100% a nihilist, it’s absurd to me that there is some inherent meaning in life. Who tf am I to say I know the meaning to life??? BUT I also recognize that I’m alive, as is everyone able to think that thought, and we might as well do something with it despite this. I think everyone contrives meaning in their own lives, and THAT. IS. OK. That itch for meaning needs to be scratched, I live as a rule utilitarian primarily, even though I accept this worldview as one I’ve contrived for myself rather than something inherently right. If you’ve got a kitchen full of ingredients, and there’s not outright purpose to the “right” thing to cook, it still seems to make more sense to scramble an egg or two, than to demolish the kitchen over the notion of a lack of inherent meaning.

I achievement hunt in video games, sure as heck not because it’s the most enjoyable way to play a game (some are annoying and hard) but because I also struggle with feelings like yours, and when I get that little ding, it feels like I’ve done something (I know I haven’t!) but it feels like I did, and that’s nice to scratch that little “I did a thing” itch. It’s okay that it feels nice, even if deep down I know it means nothing. Crap, so what? Same thing when I finish a book, finish a puzzle, watch a new movie, etc. Everything else means nothing too! But it doesn’t do me much good to dwell on that, and so I plod along for my next little ding. Sometimes that ding is the thought that “damn, this subway sandwich, is fucking bangin”. Sometimes that ding is getting a chuckle out of how stupid life is (I recently won a costume contest at my work I joined over Zoom. I planned to just watch, and as a dry stupid joke I pulled the lampshade of my lamp, plunked it on my head, and said I was a lamp. I promptly won a vote, and a gift basket to the chagrin of everyone who actually tried on their costume. If that’s not some stupid good shit to live for I don’t know what is.)

Sometimes that ding (and get this) ISNT EVEN FUN. That’s also okay. I often say satisfaction, is more important to my mental health than actual happiness or fun. THIS IS NOT THE CASE FOR EVERYONE, GIANT DISCLAIMER but this is the case for my particular brain. When it’s hard to be happy, or smile, the feeling of “hey, well at least I beat that hard level today” sometimes is enough to feel satisfied that I did something today even if I was banging my head against a wall a bit to do it.

My hobbies aren’t important, there isn’t an inherent meaning in my life, and perhaps I’m not important (who tf decides anyways though?). But I’m here, and I’m going to at least scramble a god damn egg, because someone built the kitchen so I might as well get cooking and see what happens.

I hope you open that fridge and scramble some wicked fucking eggs man.

you know, i’ve felt a similar way before. i thought that i had discovered some terrible truth, that everything is meaningless and its not worth it to try pursuing something that’s ultimately without purpose. then i got treatment for depression, and i can scarcely imagine living that way now. i still fundamentally believe that its basically all meaningless, but it turned out that my lack of drive and passion for life was far more related to the concentration of neurotransmitters in my brain and harmful patterns of thinking that it was to any coherent belief about the nature of the world, and that there is quite a lot to enjoy about being fated to die and become nothing. i’m not saying you necessarily have depression or something like that, i just remember feeling the way you describe, feeling absolutely convinced that it was the only rational way to feel about living in a world like this, and being proven wrong. with the right treatment, i found that i was unable stop myself from feeling motivated to do the things i wanted to, unable to stop myself from finding joy and fascination in the small moments of my days.

If you enjoyed the time spent, I don’t think it’s wasted. I am glad to have been able to laugh anytime I did, even if it was from a meaningless video game. But even those have become something for me, things I have accomplished and seen, they introduce me to philosophical concepts and ideas of places I’ve never been or aren’t physically possible.

I like to take screenshots too that I use as wallpapers and pretend I’m some amateur game photographer. You can create some interesting things and enjoy an experience that is uniquely you. The media you consume is personal to you and informs who you are.
Everything that builds you into who you are is important, even if you find aspects of them meaningless.

Everything becomes dust in the wind, it’s either happening now or it’s memories, so I think it’s good to enjoy what you can now and try and make good things happen next, as well as you’re able.