Too cheap to work
- Thread starter JohnRoberts
- Start date
Help Support GroupDIY Audio Forum:
Plastic or metal? The pro stuff is metal and like $40 just for the spray head.
JR
JR
Looks like metal but its hard to tell ,
There was a few people complaining lately that the mics they bought which said made of metal were actually plastic in the end .I guess if you buy from Ebay something which is advertised as metal and turns out to be plastic you would have grounds to get your money back , there be hoops to jump through though .
My friends who home brews uses a chemical bleach solution mixed with water to sterilise his bottles , then drip dries them , I guess that must leave some small residue but thats what the instructions say .
Is it just near boiling water you use ? drying the bottles outside in strong direct sunlight might allow UV light kill any nasty that remains without chemical agents .
He also swapped over from sugar to malt extract , gives way more flavour and charachter to the end product .
Boortmalt of Antwerp the worlds largest supplier to the brewing industry has a local branch in town which supplies the distillery , Ive been meaning to go down there for a look , of course these guys do deals measured in 10's of thousands of tonnes , unlikely they'd even deal directly with the public , still though there bound to have some surplus once in a while which probably ends up shipped off to make animal feed .
I'll definately try my hand at home brew once I get settled in my new place . I just wish I had all my parents old brewing equipment ,thats long gone now though .
There was a few people complaining lately that the mics they bought which said made of metal were actually plastic in the end .I guess if you buy from Ebay something which is advertised as metal and turns out to be plastic you would have grounds to get your money back , there be hoops to jump through though .
My friends who home brews uses a chemical bleach solution mixed with water to sterilise his bottles , then drip dries them , I guess that must leave some small residue but thats what the instructions say .
Is it just near boiling water you use ? drying the bottles outside in strong direct sunlight might allow UV light kill any nasty that remains without chemical agents .
He also swapped over from sugar to malt extract , gives way more flavour and charachter to the end product .
Boortmalt of Antwerp the worlds largest supplier to the brewing industry has a local branch in town which supplies the distillery , Ive been meaning to go down there for a look , of course these guys do deals measured in 10's of thousands of tonnes , unlikely they'd even deal directly with the public , still though there bound to have some surplus once in a while which probably ends up shipped off to make animal feed .
I'll definately try my hand at home brew once I get settled in my new place . I just wish I had all my parents old brewing equipment ,thats long gone now though .
A trend I noticed while shopping for replacement side sprayers many are plastic with shiny metal looking skins, with deceptively named colors like : chrome, brushed nickel, polished chrome, oil rubbed bronze, etc.. all plastic but with metallic "sounding" finish descriptions... caveat emptor.
My procedure is to use my faucet mounted bottle washer to spray yeast sediment out of my bottles, then I have a simple bottle rinser loaded with a dilute bleach solution
I typically bottle 6 gallons at a time so rewash the bottles again before loading into my dishwasher for one final wash cycle. Over the decades I have made sanitation a routine.
Boiling, but I don't add the ground up roasted barley, and roasted chocolate malt into the wort until after I remove it from the boil. Just like coffee tastes burned if you over heat it, extracting the flavor from the ground up roasted malt works better at temps below boiling (just like making pour over coffee).
that sounds almost a bad as adding food to get rid of pests... Nature is replete with wild yeasts and all kinds of biotics that would love to establish themselves in any nutrient rich solution. The legend about some Belgian ales was that in the old days they didn't have to pitch yeast into the wort, but there was so much wild beer year in the air from all the local beer brewing that the beer would start fermenting by itself naturally. I don't feel that lucky here in nowhere MS.Sugar has a "hot" alcohol taste, something young kids might use to boost proof, but not very good for the flavor profile. I use liquid malt extract and have for decades. I do use about 100G of corn sugar pitched into 6 gallons of flat beer just before bottling, to prime the beer and provide carbonation from a secondary fermentation while in the bottles.
Not exactly sunlight but I use a 25W UVc CFL lamp to disinfect my fermenter and bottling/priming tank. I use the frequency UVc bulbs that also generate ozone for a little extra something while disinfecting my beer making equipment. I have a normal 25W UVc lamp without the extra ozone mounted inside my air ducting to kill undesirable biotics floating around in my air. The ozone from that bulb feeding my room air even in modest amounts was pretty irritating so I switched to ozone free there.
JR
Matador
Well-known member
It's not recommended to use bleach, because it's almost impossible to wash away the reside without introducing a few new batch of contamination, and boiling water for sanitization is fraught with potential for burns.
Star-san is completely food-safe, and you can make 5 gallons of sterilization water with only 1 oz (I got a 32 oz bottle and am nowhere near close to using it yet). You can sterilize containers, mixing utensils, bottles, tubing, and wands, and only about 1 minute of contact is needed. It's (phosphoric) acid based, so prolonged contact with hands might be an issue, however the residue is harmless and doesn't effect the quality of whatever you are bottling.
I wash bottles, submerge in Star-san for a few minutes, then empty and store upside down in the empty dishwasher to drip, then immediately bottle right afterwards. Since you don't need to heat, rinse, or dry the chances of contamination are miniscule (the bottles go from the sanitization liquid to the dishwasher, and the bottling happens just minutes later).
That's not a legend, but rather a distortion. It's not ale, but geuze. That beer depends on a bacterium only found in the valley of the Zenne river to ferment. No yeast, no poverty. And you can't make that beer anywhere else.
There are still a few small scale breweries that operate this way. And probably a number of home brewers. Of course, industrial ersatz is also produced as the natural method can and will go wrong on occasion.
Another version, kriek is made with sour cherries. It's the grandfather of fruit beers.
Today there are also versions with grapes and other fruits, but I don't know if any of these are traditionally fermented. I sincerely doubt it, tbh. Too many sugar in these fruits and that's a problem, as it will result in exploding bottles, due to a second fermentation when bottled in the typical champagne bottles.
There have been efforts to cultivate the bacterium, but none succeeded. Real geuze doesn't travel well, so don't buy it in a webshop.
Of course, if you go back far enough in time, all beers depended on naturally occurring yeasts.
In the same area, a bacterium fermented red cheese was interesting enough to Napoleon that he sent out two spies to get the recipe. When they didn't report back after months, he sent a messenger to find out what happened to them. The messenger reported back that they still hadn't found it, but they succeeded to find recipes for dozens of beers and that they were sampling some more...
At least part of that story is true. The part that Napoleon sent out two spies for a cheese recipe. The rest might just be legend, as I could never find any proof for it.
Thanks JR ,Mat and Cy
I lived in Belgium for a few years in my mid teens so had a chance to try most of the mainstream beers , Stella I dont think much of , Jupiler isnt bad , Primus isnt quite as popular but tastes good to me .
Hoegarden is a good one too , Duvel is ok but I find it a little sweet .Leffe I like .
The Chimay Blue is my top special beer , not something you'd drink gallons of but a nice treat every once in a while.
Mostly I buy beer at lidl, typically German pilsner but I do like their own brand wheat beer and some of their festbiers also.
The microbrewery thing has really kicked off here in Ireland , Rising sons brewery has about half a dozen varieties , they generally pack a bit more punch and cost a bit less than the usual mass market crap . The pubs that serve it also give a concession to musicians knocking around a euro off the price of a pint ,that on top of the extra strenght make it hard to beat .
Coors for some reason has become popular here in the last few years , its bit a big chunk out of Buds market share .
Bud I dont like at all ,but I have to admit there were a few late nights Bud was the only thing left , if you can beat um join um ,as the saying goes .
I lived in Belgium for a few years in my mid teens so had a chance to try most of the mainstream beers , Stella I dont think much of , Jupiler isnt bad , Primus isnt quite as popular but tastes good to me .
Hoegarden is a good one too , Duvel is ok but I find it a little sweet .Leffe I like .
The Chimay Blue is my top special beer , not something you'd drink gallons of but a nice treat every once in a while.
Mostly I buy beer at lidl, typically German pilsner but I do like their own brand wheat beer and some of their festbiers also.
The microbrewery thing has really kicked off here in Ireland , Rising sons brewery has about half a dozen varieties , they generally pack a bit more punch and cost a bit less than the usual mass market crap . The pubs that serve it also give a concession to musicians knocking around a euro off the price of a pint ,that on top of the extra strenght make it hard to beat .
Coors for some reason has become popular here in the last few years , its bit a big chunk out of Buds market share .
Bud I dont like at all ,but I have to admit there were a few late nights Bud was the only thing left , if you can beat um join um ,as the saying goes .
Thanks for all the advice...
After several decades I have my beer making down to a steady process..
While I am still working on more robust bottle washers and sink side sprayers...
JR
After several decades I have my beer making down to a steady process..
While I am still working on more robust bottle washers and sink side sprayers...
JR
murrayatuptown
Well-known member
I did 1-gallon kits and cleaning saved commercial bottles wasn't too painful.
Did my first 5-gallon, and decided I was done with that headache. I enjoy making quirky labels but used glue-sticks to position them, then 3" wide packing tape over the labels. More hassle cleaning the adhesive off.
I brew stouts & porters and sometimes it's a lot of work to get the bottles clean.
A friend had a winery/brewery/distillery that didn't survive COVID. He has a day gig which takes him to the city where his bottle supplier is every week. He arranged a deal on 500 ml 'premium' ale bottles for much less than I can buy 12 oz/355 ml ordinary 'crown' beer bottles for.
0.5 liter bottles will save some work bottling, compared to the 12-OZ-er's. But the last beers were 10 & 12.3 % ABV. For a runt my size, one of those is often the last activity of the day, planned or not.
Kegging is another hurdle that doesn't appeal to me. Biggest deterrent is that it's much harder to share with remote recipients. I think I would be less apprehensive about going all-grain than kegging...but I am fine with extract brewing.
I'm all about reducing how much work it is and cleaning 50 already-labeled commercial bottles for a 5-gallon/19-liter batch again would stop me from brewing.
So buying three batches of 0.5 l bottles is the plan. I do have to get psyched up to do each batch. It is a lot of work, and I don't trust a helper to do things the same way I would. Seems there is always beer being consumed during the brewing process and that doesn't help.
Downside to shared brew effort is that it cuts the yield immediately in half!
Did my first 5-gallon, and decided I was done with that headache. I enjoy making quirky labels but used glue-sticks to position them, then 3" wide packing tape over the labels. More hassle cleaning the adhesive off.
I brew stouts & porters and sometimes it's a lot of work to get the bottles clean.
A friend had a winery/brewery/distillery that didn't survive COVID. He has a day gig which takes him to the city where his bottle supplier is every week. He arranged a deal on 500 ml 'premium' ale bottles for much less than I can buy 12 oz/355 ml ordinary 'crown' beer bottles for.
0.5 liter bottles will save some work bottling, compared to the 12-OZ-er's. But the last beers were 10 & 12.3 % ABV. For a runt my size, one of those is often the last activity of the day, planned or not.
Kegging is another hurdle that doesn't appeal to me. Biggest deterrent is that it's much harder to share with remote recipients. I think I would be less apprehensive about going all-grain than kegging...but I am fine with extract brewing.
I'm all about reducing how much work it is and cleaning 50 already-labeled commercial bottles for a 5-gallon/19-liter batch again would stop me from brewing.
So buying three batches of 0.5 l bottles is the plan. I do have to get psyched up to do each batch. It is a lot of work, and I don't trust a helper to do things the same way I would. Seems there is always beer being consumed during the brewing process and that doesn't help.
Downside to shared brew effort is that it cuts the yield immediately in half!
murrayatuptown
Well-known member
I just listened to an old T-Bone Walker tune this AM with lyrics "Too Lazy to Work, Too Nervous to Steal".
He sure did play a lot of the same licks and there wasn't much variation in the lyrics either.
At least he didn't use Auto tune ;@)
He sure did play a lot of the same licks and there wasn't much variation in the lyrics either.
At least he didn't use Auto tune ;@)
Back last century a friend made a beer label design for me...
JR
murrayatuptown
Well-known member
Slam dunk and bidet in the same sentence makes me laugh, for some twisted reason.
I was reading Michael Dregni's biography "Django", and there's a story about Django & his extended crew being put up in a hotel by a benefactor, and they put dirty dishes in the bidet. Many of them thought only peasants lived in buildings. ;O)
I was reading Michael Dregni's biography "Django", and there's a story about Django & his extended crew being put up in a hotel by a benefactor, and they put dirty dishes in the bidet. Many of them thought only peasants lived in buildings. ;O)
I may need to paraphrase this topic to "Too cheap to work properly" . There is an old theme among professionals about buying tools, that says "buy once, cry once" suggesting that buying expensive tools avoids the too frequent breakage and replacement cycle.
I raise this topic regarding my home theater that is mostly cobbled together from sundry separate components. Up until recently I was happy with a decent sized 65" display and 6 channels of dolby 5.1 surround. The problem is trying to stream movies from the internet. The digital audio feed from my Direct TV receiver seems fine, but my ROKU TV monitor's digital output sound is compromised. I get decent quality stereo sound, but zero rear channel surround sound output.
I have narrowed the problem down to my budget Walmart (ONN-Hisense) flat screen monitor. The price was right and with ROKU built in I was able to control multiple sources and start streaming but sadly the audio quality is degraded. I just want it to work as it should.
The lesson so far suggests I needed to buy a more expensive brand but how much more expensive?
JR
I raise this topic regarding my home theater that is mostly cobbled together from sundry separate components. Up until recently I was happy with a decent sized 65" display and 6 channels of dolby 5.1 surround. The problem is trying to stream movies from the internet. The digital audio feed from my Direct TV receiver seems fine, but my ROKU TV monitor's digital output sound is compromised. I get decent quality stereo sound, but zero rear channel surround sound output.
I have narrowed the problem down to my budget Walmart (ONN-Hisense) flat screen monitor. The price was right and with ROKU built in I was able to control multiple sources and start streaming but sadly the audio quality is degraded. I just want it to work as it should.
The lesson so far suggests I needed to buy a more expensive brand but how much more expensive?
JR
Got another related too cheap to work properly SKU.... I bought a cheapo 2 input by 1 output SPDIF/TOSLINK switch so I can select the digital audio feed for my home theater system. This one "almost" works right... The electronic switch works when I press the front panel switch on the unit, but the remote control is dead as a doornail... I took the remote apart and I suspect the battery is not making a good connection. It has a wierd looking spring contact that either grabs the edge or rides on top of the battery, it isn't obvious from observation.
JR
The electronic switch works when I press the front panel switch on the unit, but the remote control is dead as a doornail... I took the remote apart and I suspect the battery is not making a good connection. It has a wierd looking spring contact that either grabs the edge or rides on top of the battery, it isn't obvious from observation.JR
The ONN TV flat screen has two HDMI output jacks and so far I have tested both to see if I can extract some digital audio... no luck. This is very disappointing, I just want the smart TV to work as advertised.
I just found a list of the ten worst TV brands and ONN wasn't even on that list, and it doesn't work.
JR
I just found a list of the ten worst TV brands and ONN wasn't even on that list, and it doesn't work.
JR
I'm afraid you guys are going to make me join an A/V forum to get advice..... I feel a little like Groucho Marx, where I don't want to join any group that will have me, but I can't figure out what to buy, when so many brands are just fronts for cheap Chinese gear that does not always meet spec.
JR
JR
Youngwhisk
Well-known member
scott2000
Well-known member
Here's one blurb from a 65" Hisense ROKU...weird I just saw it...
The connector labeled HDMI (ARC) or HDMI IN (ARC) has the additional ability to use
the audio return channel to send digital audio to a receiver or sound bar, as explained
in Connecting an AV receiver or digital sound bar
https://assets.hisense-usa.com/assets/ProductDownloads/202/c8c9a74079/Roku-User-Manual.pdf
yes one of them is ARC and other is just normal HDMI output (?)... I have tried to extract digital audio from both HDMI jacks with no luck
ONN 65" POS (piece of shit). They only have one 65" model,,, the price has dropped a bunch over last couple years.
In the course of researching this I have heard multiple ONN owners complain about digital audio output.
JR
Similar threads
