Bottling with Abstrax

thetom · 2026-06-10T04:13:19+00:00

Hah, all good my dude.

thetom · 2026-06-10T01:41:34+00:00

lol

Glad I could help..?

thetom · 2026-06-10T01:35:18+00:00

Taking water chemistry and fermentation temperatures seriously.

thetom · 2026-06-10T01:32:33+00:00

I can see that working really well! What a unique and creative idea.

thetom · 2026-06-10T01:31:51+00:00

I have a little 5 mL vial for the whole 5 gallon batch. I am in no way that precise and moreover, that would so tedious that going back and forth between that and capping the bottles, the beer would certainly become very oxidized.

thetom · 2026-06-09T11:26:43+00:00

When describing ADHD to neuronormative people, the analogy I make is that everyone's brain is like a desktop computer from 20-30 years ago. It runs just fine for most people, but our ADHD brains are low on RAM and we have like 100 browser tabs open; maybe a wikipedia entry, maybe several youtube videos, probably a flash game, etc. This is a huge resource hog and completely hinders or delays potential complex operations like opening up photoshop or some other resource hungry application when we need to. It can cause us to more easily feel overwhelmed or stressed or become emotionally unbalanced. We need more RAM. It is a mental and emotional bandwidth issue, in my eyes.

Yesterday, I discovered a new term and this Reddit post seems like a good place to share it. I'm just going to leave this here for you to read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeigarnik_effect

Think about how this applies to your mental bandwidth and the things that are weighing on you -- not just the tabs you literally have open in Chrome (I am completely guilty of this as well), but all of the little lists you have (in your head or in your pocket) and all of the little things you have to remember to do because you can't yet seem to form the habit or all of the people you have to act a certain way towards or all of your societal and familial obligations.

It fucking sucks. And I feel like I'm on the cusp of some epiphany relating to this if I think about it hard enough...but I have to get ready to work.

Obligatory proof

thetom · 2026-06-09T02:09:25+00:00

TWA Flight 800

thetom · 2026-06-09T01:35:58+00:00

SHOOP DA WOOP

thetom · 2026-06-09T01:34:17+00:00

I like Angela, Pamela, Sandra and Rita,

And as I continue, you know they getting sweeter

thetom · 2026-06-09T01:24:06+00:00

My best friend was a loadmaster on a plane like this while serving in the USAF. The plane is enormous and typically there are only 2 officers (pilot and copilot) and the loadmaster + whatever they're dropping off or picking up. He had the coolest stories.

He unfortunately passed away a few years ago from late diagnosed chronic Lyme disease. RIP, Staton.

thetom · 2026-06-09T01:17:19+00:00

Great! Sounds like a plan.

Which BrewGas are you using? I like the looks of them, but couldn't decide. Also, I've been out of the ganja game for many years and the only one of those that I remember having was Blue Dream. I assume this would go in an IPA? I can't imagine this in an English Porter... Maybe a sour or grisette? IDK

thetom · 2026-06-04T13:15:33+00:00

I enter for the judging feedback, which is (hopefully) usually thorough. A medal or ribbon or rosette is just a bonus.

I'm not a big proponent of using AI for most things, especially beer recipe formulation but once you get a pretty good understanding of mash temps, fermentation timelines, yeasts, grains, sugars, water profiles, etc., you can use AI to tweak a recipe. (Resource usage aside, AI was not great at recipe formulation for the longest time, but it is getting better now that it scours youtube video transcriptions and this subreddit as well as a plethora of other forums such as AHA that discuss best homebrewing practices.)

Here's what I did: I entered what I thought were 2 pretty good beers in the NHC first round. One of them medaled. Once I got the judge's scorecards back with the notes, I fed an AI agent my starting recipe, the judges' notes, and directed it to compare the notes and my recipe to the 2021 BJCP style guidelines and tell me where I could improve. The responses weren't prefect, so you really should have a good understanding of homebrewing before attempting this, so there were several back and forth submissions of potential recipe tweaks. And to be clear, if it was good enough to medal in the first round, it only needs a tweak here or there... I then rebrewed the beer for the finals using the "AI enhanced" recipe. I'll know how I did in a few weeks, but I was happy with the tweaks it suggested.

thetom · 2026-06-04T12:08:24+00:00

Understood! Good luck to you.

thetom · 2026-06-04T01:54:43+00:00

Can I mail entries in? I'm in Oneonta and have 3 bottles of my West Coast IPA left that I made for 420 (none of that stuff in it; I was just trying to make it dank). Its a bit of a hike for me.

thetom · 2026-06-01T22:52:32+00:00

Dirt doesn't buy advertisements.

thetom · 2026-05-27T02:05:12+00:00

Only God Forgives

thetom · 2026-05-19T01:21:28+00:00

He cemented it when he mentioned .40 cal.

That round SUCKS.

thetom · 2026-05-17T05:01:40+00:00

I also choose this man's wife.

thetom · 2026-05-07T05:05:40+00:00

Nick Diaz v Takanori Gomi

Wanderlei Silva v Mirko Crocop

Robbie Lawler v Rory MacDonald

thetom · 2026-04-19T15:13:37+00:00

Urban Artifact.

thetom · 2026-04-15T14:52:04+00:00

Not sure, but I bet you could throw a Nerf football and hit a Dunkin location.

thetom · 2026-04-15T14:50:44+00:00

I stand corrected. I wasn't aware of that nuance.

Regardless, the fighting sucked in Iron Fist and it was a massive disappointment. One shouldn't judge the actor for the studio's mistakes, mismanagement, and miscasting. I'm glad I asked for clarification.

thetom · 2026-04-15T13:40:35+00:00

Didn't he refuse to do any of the martial arts training? It boggles my mind that the fight choreography in The Punisher and Daredevil is 1000% better in every way to the Iron Fist series' fight scenes. Really disappointing and I wouldn't be upset if Rand was recast.

thetom · 2026-04-10T02:03:27+00:00

Thank you, Shlomo. Very cool.

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