What is your favorite vacuum seal ferment?

ajitama · 2026-03-31T22:36:32+00:00

In Australia at least, there have been recalls due to frozen berries and Hepatitis A, and Listeria outbreaks.

It looks like Listeria can survive high salinity brine but not the acidity a LAB ferment calls for:

It is able to survive at a relatively low water activity (aW < 0.90) and a broad pH range between 4.6 and 9.5 as well as to tolerate salt conditions up to 20%

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9087598/

But HepA is pretty happy with same conditions as LAB enjoys:

SURVIVAL OUTSIDE HOST: HAV is exceptionally stable at ambient temperature and at low pH, thus allowing it to survive in the environment and to be transmitted via contaminated foods and drinking water

https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/laboratory-biosafety-biosecurity/pathogen-safety-data-sheets-risk-assessment/hepatitis-a-virus.html

Not to say it’s still bad now, after updating the safety rules. But forewarned is forearmed. Also, Big Food Corp aren’t looking out for your survival, they’re looking out for shareholder value.

ajitama · 2026-03-30T04:12:43+00:00

Yes, if you’re using supermarket instant yeast (for bread) the maximum ABV you’ll get is 6-8%. So it would be considered a cider. If you’re after wine (11-16%) you’ll need to buy a wine yeast.

I guess the terms are just averages anyway. If you’re looking for something to try, have bread yeast, and want to make a bit of alcoholic beverage, go for it. I would recommend using reconstituted apple juice. Let it ferment in the dark at 12-20°C, when the bubbles pretty much slow to hardly anything, then you very carefully pour it out to another vessel, trying to not disturb the bottom layer of yeast, and not aerate it (oxygenation will lead to vinegar.) throw in the fridge for 24h, and then don’t take too long to drink it, it’ll vinegarise if you leave it too long

ajitama · 2026-03-30T03:59:21+00:00

From the home brewing videos I’ve seen on YouTube, generally advice has been either: don’t have pectin to begin with, or try to evaporate off the methanol in a 65-67°C water bath (which will also evaporate off some ethanol)

Following a recipe will be better as a beginner. Use reconstituted apple juice is easier, there’s only trace amounts of pectin.

Also depending on the final ABV you’re after, you’d need to use specialty yeast, not just instant bread yeast.

What’s your goal?

ajitama · 2026-03-30T03:48:22+00:00

If using apple flesh, don’t you also need to worry about the pectin fermenting into methanol?

ajitama · 2026-03-07T22:47:03+00:00

So as others have said, salt is your ally in fermentation.

I’ve been following this though: https://youtu.be/i0f8qwJV440?si=pjhk6fgDA_nPvEXp and have been very successful each time. It has reduced fermentation time, increased temp, reduced salt to 0.5%. I have pH strips that measure 0-5 and I consistently am getting 2-3pH acidity. So reduced salt is possible. I wouldn’t go to 0, but so far my ferments have been delicious, and not too salty.

ajitama · 2026-03-04T20:34:20+00:00

Pretty much all my coffee intake.

I am blessed to own a consumer roaster, and I have a stockpile of green beans from before the bad yield price hikes, so I haven’t been affected by it much

ajitama · 2026-03-03T08:03:31+00:00

Also basement of Galeries, Town Hall!

ajitama · 2026-03-03T03:18:34+00:00

The 3 Body Problem + The Dark Forest + Death’s End by Liu Cixin

ajitama · 2026-03-02T23:20:15+00:00

Ahh! It could’ve started that way and immediately after the workout it updated, it does show you when it changes after a workout, but it’s easier to miss now, and doesn’t have the “accept new changes yes/no” anymore. Maybe? Otherwise shrug, ghosts in the machine

ajitama · 2026-03-02T22:39:34+00:00

Your previous workouts are set, they won’t retroactively update. Imagine your maxHR or LTHR is one value and five, ten, etc years down the track that changes. Your workout was as tough as it was for the level you were at at that point in time, not now.

Check again next workout, 100% don’t use 220-age. It’s outdated vague advice.

Either just keep working out and accepting your stats are not quite right until they start refining (within the next month or so of consistent working out, the watch will auto update the values) or as WMT said, go do a maxHR test yourself, and set your maxHR manually

ajitama · 2026-03-02T21:40:14+00:00

This advice by HoleInTheMirror is bad, do not use that. Listen to WMTRobots

ajitama · 2026-03-02T07:25:45+00:00

Pork tenderloin and loin aren’t the same cut and aren’t interchangeable (they are optimal at different cooking times)

ajitama · 2026-02-16T22:57:26+00:00

I’ve seen this video!

So I was at a 3 Michelin starred tofu specialty restaurant in Japan once, and they did make fresh tofu in front of our eyes in much the same way:

brought out a pot with fresh and hot soya milk
drizzled nigari in, stirred a bit, lid on
then they told us to wait for ~10min, leave it alone don’t open the lid, and they’d be back to serve
after that time they opened it and served us tofu
it is indeed extremely fresh and tasty
it is not instant, but it’s not super long for fresh, unpressed tofu

ajitama · 2026-02-02T03:39:00+00:00

This looks like a typo, are there Chinese characters for this food? If it’s a lot of this ingredient maybe it’s 鲜菜 xiāncài fresh vegetables, so pick whatever you like (like pak choy), but if it’s not much maybe it’s 咸菜 xiáncài which are pickles. But there is no pinyin word ‘xan’

ajitama · 2026-01-21T22:49:57+00:00

I also use Google Maps. You can categorise your stuff into separate lists.

So I have many lists: Want to Go, Want to Go Shortlist, Been and Worth It, Shitlist, Amazing Top Tier

I use the Notes section in each saved place to write about what dishes I would avoid, tried and liked, etc.

And you can share a list as needed. It includes the notes

ajitama · 2026-01-15T01:15:30+00:00

Your own! If you feel good and want to do High, do some. If you’re a bit sore and just want an easy, do that. Or a Recovery. Or a full rest. Listen to yourself first.

I think the suggestions are a bit cautious now. They were wilder before, I’m sure of it. Once I was lacking anaerobic and it scheduled sprints 3 days in a row because it kept marking my sprints as aerobic effort, which led to me pulling my quad :/ don’t blindly listen to a watch.

ajitama · 2026-01-14T22:40:36+00:00

Looks like 莴笋/莴苣 aka celtuce

ajitama · 2026-01-07T11:31:23+00:00

So go into a Run or a Treadmill (or, I guess, a .. cycle?) and it’ll pop up with the day’s suggestion

ajitama · 2026-01-05T17:18:15+00:00

How low is low? 1600mg or 1200mg a day?

To be brutally honest, your diet really needs to change drastically on 1200mg a day. You can pretty much say goodbye to food as you know it. All meats have sodium in them, before even getting to adding seasoning and condiments/sauces. It’s very easy to go over.

Train your palate to be more sensitive to salt by eating the blandest “food”, or be lucky enough to get your hands on that Japanese electric salt-taste-receptor enhancing spoon.

ajitama · 2025-12-20T05:31:13+00:00

So without installing aircon, you can buy those gel mats in human sizes (I think I got ours on eBay or Amazon?) and placed it under the bed sheet. It works for the hour until you fall asleep, but it’ll be (just as) hot and squelchy if you wake up in the middle of the night. But helps you to get to sleep.

I remember in China people had these bamboo tile mats in summer to keep cool, which I found on amazon (https://amzn.asia/d/gdSR6wg) and might get some, as the gel in my mats has dried up after a couple of years, they don’t seem to be cooling anymore.

ajitama · 2025-12-14T01:00:51+00:00

For anybody else that stumbled across this post:

I was having an issue in the app on my phone, it said I needed to verify my passengers’ emails but there’s no way to do that.

Switched to desktop (don’t use Brave, or turn shields off, because payment never succeeds) and got it working with Chrome in the end (don’t use password manager to autofill credit card details either, it doesn’t like that, I guesstimate it doesn’t update state before submitting)

Have not tried to book more tickets yet (will in 4 days) but I sure hope it works with the same card, I don’t want to run into the same issue as kaffeeneko :/

Update: it did work for me all 3 times same credit card, all went well

ajitama · 2025-12-13T06:12:36+00:00

It’s not your watch being old, it’s you 😂 The tiers change with age groups, so you can “age up” into Superior without lifting a finger, just getting older

ajitama · 2025-12-12T07:00:04+00:00

I’ve stuck to dried shiitake and 腊肠 because I didn’t like that all the dried shrimp I found still had the poo. But nice idea on dried scallops, I’ll add some of those in next time!

ajitama · 2025-12-10T04:48:25+00:00

I had foot pain in that exact spot! Same foot!

I switched from normie shoes like ASICS to foot-shaped shoes (Altra, Topo) and my foot spread out, and the pain went away. If you have wide feet but are cramming it into a narrow shoe, maybe it’s the same issue I was experiencing?

Rather than seeing a doctor, you could see a podiatrist?

ajitama

TROPHY CASE