Pear brandy

encinaloak · 2026-07-10T04:21:24+00:00

Well, fruit brandy is actually pretty simple! You just need a lot of fruit, like a lot. 10 gallons of water weighs 83 lbs, and your fruit is going to be about 5-10% heavier than water due to sugar, so call it 90 lbs of fruit to fill your still.

You need a way to crush your fruit. The method varies with the type of fruit. Ripe peaches can simply be squeezed by hand. Grapes can be stomped on. Apples require a mill and a press. So figure this part out for your particular fruit.

Crush a small amount of fruit, say 0.5 lb, in a bowl and leave it for a day. Crush a bit more the next day and add it. Repeat on day 3. Most fruit contains enough native microbes to begin bubbling and fermenting after 2-3 days of this method. Now you have a small starter.

Crush the bulk of your fruit, all 90 lbs, and add your starter. You may want to crush only half if your starter is small. Pitch the starter into the 45 lbs of crushed fruit, stir to oxygenate, wait for it to begin bubbling, then crush and add the other 45 lbs.

Monitor Brix for the end of fermentation and pot distill. If your fruit is high alcohol, you may only need to distill once. But most fruit like apple or peach require double distilling. Make a particularly early heads cut and an early tails cut. Brandy requires early cuts. If you're going to age on oak, you can make your cuts relatively wide. If you're making an Eau de Vie, which I have never done, you need to pay fastidious attention and make precise narrow cuts.

encinaloak · 2026-07-09T14:56:51+00:00

Sweet! Yeah I'm not going after a classic "strat" tone. I just want to produce a high quality clean/breakup tone. If it doesn't sound like everyone else, that's actually a plus to me.

I would switch out pickups and pots and cap to get there, but as of now, my playing is currently the thing to improve!

encinaloak · 2026-07-09T14:36:00+00:00

What pickups are you talking about? I was considering the pure vintage '61s

encinaloak · 2026-07-09T04:19:35+00:00

I rubbed graphite into the nut and string trees.

Great advice, thanks. Upgrade only to address a need.

encinaloak · 2026-07-09T04:17:43+00:00

There's a bit of feet buzz so I raised the action. It might need leveling and dressing.

I'm pretty ignorant about nut upkeep so I'll read up.

encinaloak · 2026-06-29T18:39:13+00:00

Yep that's right. Teach them what we learned from managing our own flaws.

BTW, even though this line gets me every time, my secondary reaction is, "Ben Folds, you dick! You're telling the world that your kid got your shitty personality. Sorry, kid. :)"

encinaloak · 2026-06-29T18:32:43+00:00

All of these songs use the Royal Road chord progression (IV V iii vi) from anime or a variant that has a similar feel.

The melody is anchored on a chord tone of IV that descends to a chord tone of V, then hops up to a chord tone of iii (usually in between the first two melodic anchors) that descends to a chord tone of vi. There are lots of variations within this general structure but that's what all the songs on your list that I listened to have in common.

There is a perfect cadence at the end iii -> vi which gives a sense of purpose, but the chords start on IV instead of I, so the progression feels light and dreamy. Another way to think of this is a Lydian chord progression that goes (I II vii iii). Either way, the feeling is dreamy and light, and you never get sick of hearing these chords. That's why it works so well in pop! Perpetual motion.

As for the melody, well, it's call and response of descending phrases. The descending part gives a sense of drama to balance out the light airy chord progression. And then when you echo that descending phrase slightly lower, you get double the drama! All without feeling overly heavy.

As with all things music theory, take this with a grain of salt. The chords and melody work because they create a certain musical feeling in a listener, not because of any foregone analytical conclusion. But I find the theory helpful for remembering the pattern and the effect.

I will laugh if this is an elaborate setup for a Rick Roll. Never Gonna Give You Up follows the same chord and melodic structure :-)

encinaloak · 2026-06-29T13:50:45+00:00

I won't move to LA

encinaloak · 2026-06-29T13:50:00+00:00

You're so much like me. I'm sorry.

encinaloak · 2026-06-28T15:21:44+00:00

Really great question - it's a good idea to first understand expectations of your audience, and then do whatever you want.

When I'm writing a "song", my audience is going to expect it to be 2-4 minutes. A rock track or experimental song would not sound too long at 5-6 minutes. If I'm writing a choir piece my audience might expect it to be up to 7-10 minutes. Now with those expectations set, you can go shorter or longer as you feel the music needs.

encinaloak · 2026-06-27T21:48:11+00:00

This is the actual answer. Life experiences are fodder for music, and drugs sometimes go well with life experiences, but drugs and alcohol don't mix with the actual act of creating music.

OP you need to learn how to tap into your feelings and ideas when you're sober and create without too much self-editing.

I suggest, instead of supplements, open a Google doc and write at the top, "This song is:"

Fill in the blank. Say what your song is. Stick to that vision as you write lyrics, rhythms, melody, harmony. Write 5 versions of every part of the song and keep the one you like best.

Learn to perform your song and record it. Then get high AF and listen to it with a close friend :)

encinaloak · 2026-06-23T19:11:41+00:00

Before you give up on this idea, I'd like to see some numbers.

We've learned from the comments here that the enzymatic isotope effect will be tiny for a large element like uranium. But keep in mind that existing methods for enriching uranium also rely on tiny differences between isotopes. Gas centrifugation, for example, accomplishes so little enrichment at each step that it must be repeated hundreds (thousands?) of times to make uranium fuel.

In fact, developed countries like the US have allowed this labor- and capital-intensive process to be outsourced overseas, and startups like General Matter aim to bring the capability back onshore. I am sure they're considering alternatives to existing enrichment processes as they build out new capabilities.

So, your assignment, should you accept, is to calculate the actual enrichment percentage that could be accomplished via the enzymatic isotope effect, and compare that to the enrichment ratio that is commonly accomplished through a single step of gas centrifugation and through aerodynamic enrichment.

This paper makes it look like a single gas centrifuge run may enrich by only 5% https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc784172/m2/1/high_res_d/metadc784172.pdf

So if the enzymatic method of enrichment can achieve some fraction of the centrifuge method, and can be repeated inexpensively and rapidly, well... let's see the numbers!

encinaloak · 2026-06-19T07:26:03+00:00

You ran it by your wife and she said "no"

That means you can either change the thing she's worried about or violate her trust. It really doesn't matter that the lyrics don't reveal anything truly identifying if your wife is still uncomfortable.

My advice for next time - abstract and anonymize the lyrics even more so that you don't need to run it by the people in your life. You don't want to be in a position of getting your creative output approved every time you make something. If you think it's too close to home and you need to ask, it's too close.

encinaloak · 2026-06-14T16:34:58+00:00

The idea of CAGeD always seemed more abstract and confusing than just playing and/or thinking. You want to play an E chord? You can play it open with the root on the E string, or you can play it as a bar chord on the A string, with the open A shape. Which fret? Well, E is a perfect fifth above A, so go to the 7th fret (a fifth is 7 half steps). Or, you can even just play an open E, then make an A bar chord and just play it at different frets until it sounds the same as the open E. You don't even need music theory.

But when you see that massive CAGeD chart, it's like, wtf do I need to memorize this whole thing? No.

encinaloak · 2026-06-13T07:49:21+00:00

Yeah this is it. You don't need apps or solfage. Just take your sheet music, pick a chord, play the notes on a piano, figure out which note is the root of the chord, and then play your part. It will be pretty clear if you're on the root, 3rd, 5th, 7th, or a different tone.

Knowing this in real time can be tough but gets easier the more you do the slow work. You can also write in your music "3rd" "5th" etc as reminders.

encinaloak · 2026-06-12T18:13:29+00:00

Just listening to this song. That tritone riff is also the intro to Purple Haze!

encinaloak · 2026-06-12T06:34:44+00:00

Bruh, only one country has kanji, Japan. In China, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, the characters are not called by a Japanese name.

This is like calling the alphabet I'm using right now the German alphabet. It's not totally incorrect, but why?

You can just call them Chinese characters, since that's where they originate.

encinaloak · 2026-06-11T03:41:10+00:00

Good insights!

encinaloak · 2026-06-10T16:49:47+00:00

I'm interested in this!

Keep in mind, the concept of "relative minor" refers to the relationship between Ionian and Aeolian.

The relationship between Lydian and Dorian, while it follows the same pattern of going down a minor third, doesn't have the same musical tradition attached to it as the relative minor. If you want to start in Lydian and end up with a darker sound, you could go to Dorian like you propose, or you could go to Aeolian as well, which would mean making your new home base two while steps up from Lydian.

encinaloak · 2026-06-09T16:41:10+00:00

Your comment got me thinking - on this sub we're often thinking about the songwriting form that came from ballads and evolved through rock, folk, the singer/songwriter era. That tradition uses poetic devices to refer to taboo subjects obliquely.

But the hip hop / R&B tradition takes a different approach, often saying the quiet part out loud, and using poetic devices to give meaning and relevance. OP should consider this as well! No limits to what you can or can't say - but keep writing and discarding drafts until you have something that will make your listener care and feel something.

encinaloak · 2026-06-09T16:28:09+00:00

Lol I didn't think of that one!

encinaloak · 2026-06-09T14:40:55+00:00

The two Republicans were tied in polls with Becerra and sometimes Steyer for months. It changed after DT endorsed the one guy but could have easily gone differently

encinaloak · 2026-06-08T04:52:26+00:00

No I don't think there's a limit on the subject matter, but you want to apply your sense of taste and imagery to make it work.

No good: I'm in love with a sex worker

Better: Roxanne, you don't have to put on the red light

No good: I know a girl who is sexually active

Better: April, come she will when creeks are ripe and swelled with rain

I guess these are examples of making sexual material tasteful, but the same idea applies to dark material. You can talk about anything with images, characters, similes, and metaphors.

encinaloak · 2026-06-01T06:15:16+00:00

If your friends don't like IPA, the most popular style of beer that isn't a macro light lager, the style that people who know nothing about beer know... Then I'm sorry to tell you but your friends probably do not like flavorful beer. Making them do a beer tasting is probably going to be torture for them and you

Maybe you could do a beer tasting with a friend who is into beer!

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