What R you doing today?

[Dennis Griffith]

I was talking to my daughter yesterday (girls like to talk ) and she asked me about my wine, I of course told her about my blackberry wine and that I was going to rent a press to press the fruits in a few days.

This lunchtime a box arrived …

After I assembled it, I checked the instructions to make sure I had assembled it correctly and proceeded to make a base and extra blocks from offcuts that I have lying around. I can still hear my father saying, “Don’t throw away offcuts son, you never know when you will need them.” and I can see him now, saying nothing but nodding and smiling approvingly

View attachment 116190
I knew my investment in having kids would be worth it

I think I have the same press. Great for grapes, not so for apples.

 

[Daddythelen11]

My wife and I went to see one of the funniest comedians i have ever heard. Look for him on DryBar Comedy and else where. Brad Upton from the Seattle area. Everyone in the audience laughed and laughed so hard our faces hurt. Then he did around afterwards taking pictures for probably an hour or longer.

Ps. I take horrible selfies. Never can smoke for some reason. Probably age related.
View attachment 116210

Absolutely love drybar comedy, Brad is one of the best!

 

[Daddythelen11]

I think I have the same press. Great for grapes, not so for apples.

Maybe freeze apples, then thaw completely first?

 

[back2it]

After contorting yourself into that space ... howinthuheck did you reach your phone to answer it??? I'm impressed!

Well maybe I exagerated, a 10 year old could possibly fit And to answer your question - Bluetooth!

I think I have the same press. Great for grapes, not so for apples.

It's a 6L, very small but I will only be using it for soft fruits and at the end of fermentation so it should be OK for me until I start getting ambitious

 

[Dennis Griffith]

Well maybe I exagerated, a 10 year old could possibly fit And to answer your question - Bluetooth!



It's a 6L, very small but I will only be using it for soft fruits and at the end of fermentation so it should be OK for me until I start getting ambitious

I plan on getting an all metal one for the apples. Freezing may taint the excellent cider we produce, it just takes longer currently with the wood press.

 

[back2it]

I plan on getting an all metal one for the apples. Freezing may taint the excellent cider we produce, it just takes longer currently with the wood press.

I plan on HINTING that I'm going to buy a metal one

 

[Ohio Bob]

I plan on HINTING that I'm going to buy a metal one

I’m with you! Just waiting until the wife says I’m spending too much on wine supplies.

OK, my new hobby is going restoring vintage Porsche’s, I’ll need a complete set of metric tools.
No wait, I’ll get back into cycling, first thing is to get a $10k titanium bike.
No too strenuous, I’ll go back to golf, my clubs are junk, $2000 there, plus lessons.
I’ve always wanted to collect vintage guitars, wait, wait, there’s so much to do...

 

[Hazelemere]

Crushed and pressed homegrown Regent to make a Rose. Chaptalized to SG 1.085 from SG 1.073. Will ferment with 71B yeast.

Pressed my Black Iris Port at SG 1.000 through the Regent skins in my bladder press and then raised the SG to 1.030 with cane sugar (fermenting on EC-1118)

Pressed my Framboise (Raspberry) at 1.000 through the Regent skins and Black Iris seeds (fermenting on 71B)

Only grapes left to process are Marechal Foch which I'll try to leave until the SG gets to 1.090+

On Saturday we'll grind and press Russet apples together with thawed from frozen homegrown white wine grapes ~SG 1.073.

We ground and pressed about 500 lbs of apples Macintosh, Cox and Russets plus thawed crushed and pressed ~40 lbs destemmed frozen white wine grapes to make Cox Cyser Pyment, Russet Macintosh, Macintosh Cyser and Macintosh on its own. We use ~7.5 kg of unpasteurized blueberry blossom honey for the cysers and cane sugar for the apple wines. No water was added. We are using 71B/D47 on the cysers or D47 yeast on its own on the apple wines. Everything is picked and processed except Marechal Foch which needs another 3 weeks to ripen. We'll bentonite all of the apple wines in about 8 days to remove protein, especially from the cysers.

 

[Dennis Griffith]

I plan on HINTING that I'm going to buy a metal one

Oh, I can buy one now, it will just cost me triple.

 

[ceeaton]

Have a b-day coming up, so had to buy something fun... Got a new dehydrator. Originally bought to dry peppers to make chile powder, smoked paprika etc, but couldn't resist trying to make some easy jerky. Made a batch last night, started another up today. Pretty darn easy to make, does take around 6 hours to fully dry, but the results are yummy! (plus I can add less salt)







Above image is NuMex R. Naky paprika pods grown from seed. Will smoke for a few hours then dehydrate.

 

[winemaker81]

Finished the quarter round molding in the closet today. The part that had be worried is the small piece of molding that goes on the front of each shelving piece. Cutting it can be dangerous, with my fingers FAR closer to a powered miterbox blade than I like. The inner flat piece is 3/4" wide.



My solution? I cut it from the end of a piece of stock that is over 1' long, so my fingers are no where near the blade. If I cut it a bit wide and it needs trimming? I bin it and cut a new one. Another piece of stock is cheaper to replace than my fingers!

Next problem? The vent cover is close to the shelf, and the molding will cover it:



Next solution? I pulled the router table out, used a straight bit to cut a slot on the bottom of the molding, so the vent cover fits under it:



I cut the slot deep enough that I can remove/replace the vent cover:



Mrs. WM81 is very pleased with the result. She'll be doing the caulking.




Side note -- I have a LOT of carpenter's pencils. Periodically I buy new ones, as I'm good at misplacing them. At current count I have 5 that are sharpened, and I'm guessing I'll find a couple more the next time I clean the garage. Plus I've got 4 more new ones some place ...

 

[back2it]

Side note -- I have a LOT of carpenter's pencils. Periodically I buy new ones, as I'm good at misplacing them. At current count I have 5 that are sharpened, and I'm guessing I'll find a couple more the next time I clean the garage. Plus I've got 4 more new ones some place ...

I buy a bulk lot and put one in EVERY toolbox I have and every location that I could possibly need one.

I still find that I have to look for a pencil when I need one

 

[vinny]

Side note -- I have a LOT of carpenter's pencils. Periodically I buy new ones, as I'm good at misplacing them. At current count I have 5 that are sharpened, and I'm guessing I'll find a couple more the next time I clean the garage. Plus I've got 4 more new ones some place ...

I have dozens of carpenters pencils. Most are as dull as imaginable. I recently upgraded to mechanical pencils. You can hold a nice sharp point for a long time, and they have a built in sharpener. The troubling part is that for decades I have stuck my pencil behind my ear. These come with holders to put in your pocket, I put it down in the most bizarre places. I look forward to it becoming habit so I am not looking for it all the time.

They are nice to use, but a pain to find.

Nice work on the trim! My first thought would have been to cut the vent, not the trim.

\

 

[bstnh1]

Never liked carpenter pencils. I use the standard No.2 yellow wood cased pencil ----- when I can find one! Despite stashing a few in the garage, in the basement workshop, in the kitchen junk drawer and in the shed, I still manage to go to get one and find none there or a couple that are dull as a piece of charcoal.

 

[winemaker81]

Never liked carpenter pencils. I use the standard No.2 yellow wood cased pencil ----- when I can find one! Despite stashing a few in the garage, in the basement workshop, in the kitchen junk drawer and in the shed, I still manage to go to get one and find none there or a couple that are dull as a piece of charcoal.

I find regular pencils dull too fast, and the lead breaks too easily. Especially when I drop them, point down, which seems to be the only way I do it ....

 

[ibglowin]

Guess who's back? Back again!

IB's back..... Tell a friend!

 

[mainshipfred]

For me it's rough carpentry carpenter's pencils, fine woodworking mechanical pencils, metal framing, sheet metal and steel work sharpies.

 

[ibglowin]

Rolled into Paso Robles on Monday afternoon. Have always wanted to stop in at Turley for a tasting and we finally got it on the books this trip! 300PM tasting and last of the day. Only 4 wines on the list and one was a Petit Sirah. Tasting fee was a reasonable $25. Our server was a young guy with a heavy Italian accent and he seemed at first a bit more interested in getting off work but the more we engaged with him the more he seemed to come around and the tasting got better and better. Mrs IB is pretty good about engaging people with convo. Her secret.... just ask people about themselves. Most people don't mind this approach and this worked well. He started in on the second wine and I started asking some detailed questions about wine chemistry and grape growing, pH and he really opened up and seemed to forget about getting off work. Had a really nice experience and he even comped our entire tasting fees and gave us the 10% winemakers discount out of the blue. We left with 4 nice bottles of Zin and a great tasting experience!

 

[David Violante]

Thoroughly enjoyed touring the Frank Lloyd Wright estate in Arizona. His intentionality of materials, space, and organic design was wonderful to experience. It reminded me quite a lot of the need to do so in wine crafting as well.

 

[back2it]

Today I am celebrating!

My wife likes extremely sweet wines (ice wine) and regards my wine making attempts on par with demonic alchemy.

She is going to visit her family soon but decided that taking a few bottles of European ice wine was far too expensive €48 for ½ bottle (plus shipping), so I created an extremely sweet mango wine and asked her to taste it. She reluctantly did so while making "the suffering face". She didnt say it was good BUT.... she now wants to take two of my demonic creations with her to present to the family as an acceptable "ice wine".

Result (sorry, I couldn't find a dancing mango)

I think I need to re-double my wine making effort just in case she would like to take another two ½ bottles next year. I don't want to run out

Ray...