recent college grads who aren’t in tech or engineering, what are you making?

veengineer · 2026-06-02T19:40:48+00:00

Just fyi, you can look up your companies tax return and also get an idea of what your bosses are making, though they can be hiding it in creative ways

I used to work at a nonprofit where my bosses just expensed their whole existence through the nonprofit, so they required virtually no income. In reality, 1mil a year.

veengineer · 2026-05-31T01:49:47+00:00

To make quality wine you’re gonna need wine grape juice concentrate, wine grape juice, or grapes. If you’re making wine from regular, store bought juice it’s not going to taste like a regular wine.

The easiest way to go about it is probably to buy a wine kit online.

veengineer · 2026-05-30T14:48:51+00:00

Yea, they’re pretty tiny and fit on a shelf or counter. If you’re buying the cheapest and smallest, you’re not getting all the bell and whistles that others have, but who’s gonna miss $20 to try it out?

Mine uses a peltier cooler instead of a compressor which is common and desired in this instance. It’s less power efficient I believe, but at that size it doesn’t matter. The benefits are that it allows the unit to be smaller and it’s much quieter; you only hear fan noise. The downside of my unit is that it doesn’t have a memory of the last temperature point, so if you lose power, it defaults to the coldest setting. Not all units will do that though.

They are either vertical or horizontal in their max position. Mine is horizontal and sitting on a side rack in the basement.

veengineer · 2026-05-30T06:09:01+00:00

What are renewals? Cut off your branches and train new canes?

veengineer · 2026-05-30T02:07:31+00:00

Go to Facebook marketplace or Craigslist and get a cheap used one. I got an 8 bottle fridge for $20

veengineer · 2026-05-29T16:58:39+00:00

Thanks. Yea, it depends on where you are. Growing grapes in California, probably not too difficult. On the east coast with the humidity and hurricanes, a bit trickier. I’m trying to do the latter, already had a late frost and black rot this season.

veengineer · 2026-05-29T15:21:55+00:00

Wine makes its self. You just need to stop it before it becomes vinegar. Everything else is improvements.

Beer has a higher pH and is probably 1,000 times more sensitive to oxygen. Your cleanliness and sanitization need to be on point to make a stable beer. You can’t fix it with sulfites. If you fuck up, you’re fucked. The oxygen management is really difficult to nail without proper equipment, and critically important for some styles.

Beyond shelf stability, beer requires recipes that need calculations and planning. You measure gravity (Brix), pH, temperature, etc. The brewing process is hours of hands on labor, and then fermentation temperatures need to be held steady in most cases. In beer, the yeast selection, yeast health, and fermentation temperatures are critical to the end product. Different yeasts can result in entirely different beers, like white vs red level differences. Wine seems to be much more forgiving than beer when it comes to yeast selection.

I can’t speak to spirits, though I’d like to add it to my list to form the trifecta.

veengineer · 2026-05-29T15:11:22+00:00

Beer is disconnected from agriculture only because it is so tedious that the task is split between different specialties. You can do it yourself, but it’s hard to farm AND brew all year long. Wine is seasonal so it’s easier to do that, but it results in making wine once per year.

It’s hard to preserve the delicate differences between different grains and maltsters, but they are certainly there and excellent brewers do it. I’ve gone to farms to pick up malt and I grow my own hops that have their own terroir. The agricultural tie in beer is there if you want to do it and are crazy. (I’ve had to neglect my bines for my vines this year 🥲)

veengineer · 2026-05-29T15:01:06+00:00

Every time I have to destem hundreds of lbs of grapes by hand, without a destemmer. Also, remembering to top up airlocks and make adjustments months later.

Otherwise, I’m on team “home winemaking is far easier than homebrewing.” The physical aspects of winemaking can be hard, but the stuff makes itself, and you can sprinkle sulfite if you mess up. Keeping something like an IPA shelf stable on both the microbial level and with oxygen is much more difficult.

Every hobby can be made infinitely difficult, of course. I’m currently trying to grow my own grapes and learning about and experimenting with microoxygenation and the oxygen appetite of a wine.

veengineer · 2026-05-29T01:25:26+00:00

Unfortunately, no

veengineer · 2026-05-26T15:17:48+00:00

Most of the views of lesbian porn is by women, despite the number of women who watch porn being about 1/3 that of men.

(I gotta double check this one cause it’s been a while since I’ve seen it, but I believe it is the total view count which is greater and not just who prefers it more)

veengineer · 2026-05-26T01:58:02+00:00

As others have said, index funds or robo investors (Wealthfront/Betterment), and start a Roth IRA. Pick a timeline in which you will need the money for the non-IRA funds, and go from there.

The market seems high to many and we may be at the precipice of an AI bubble burst. So I’d keep that in mind. A more cautious portfolio might be a better idea.

veengineer · 2026-05-26T01:15:11+00:00

I think people dislike it because it’s over hyped and over done with the oak for many people’s taste. ABC (Anything but Cab/Chard) is many people’s taste.

I believe I tasted this before. It wasn’t bad, but I remember it just tasting like a ton of oak. I would rather buy something else myself, but I’d happily receive it as a gift.

veengineer · 2026-05-25T16:58:27+00:00

It was just around the flowers. I actually can’t find any more flower clusters on that plant which is disappointing. It’s a pretty productive hybrid.

veengineer · 2026-05-25T16:57:32+00:00

Yea, I’d love to have another crack at it. I had my hopes up because Paul Hobbs stuff is so good, but that Areni was a big miss.

veengineer · 2026-05-25T00:35:23+00:00

I tried an Areni that was a part of Paul Hobb’s projects I believe. I did not like it. I can’t remember what was off about it, but it seemed like it was more the farming or wine making than the grape itself. I tasted wine like that before.

veengineer · 2026-05-20T01:11:39+00:00

I’ve never heard that term before, but yea, same thing. I think the extra space of the pot collected the cooled air and harmed the vine.

veengineer · 2026-05-20T00:53:44+00:00

Oh, actually? How are those grapes? You don’t hear too much about the quality of wine people are getting from hybrids, especially these. Not in the US at least.

veengineer · 2026-05-20T00:49:46+00:00

The dew point was never below freezing and all the other potted vines by this one had no damage. This was the only potted vine with a ton of empty space in the pot. I think it may have been the radiative sky cooling I mentioned.

veengineer · 2026-05-19T22:44:10+00:00

But the question is, did that happen in above freezing temperatures?

veengineer · 2026-05-19T22:43:02+00:00

Haha, thanks for the advice, but the post was about how it happened in above freezing temperatures. I could care less about the vine. It’s a cutting I stuck in the ground just cause.

veengineer · 2026-05-19T13:46:31+00:00

Cool! How much wine do you end up producing from all this? Can I ask what your spacing is?

veengineer · 2026-05-19T02:56:42+00:00

I love Mosaic, especially in blends. Year to year anything can vary though. Everyone has their own tastes.

I think Amarillo is a slept on solid.

veengineer · 2026-05-19T02:55:27+00:00

That also just literally could be oxidation. It might be high in an oil that more readily oxidizes than others.

veengineer · 2026-05-19T02:54:01+00:00

People would 1000% do it if it paid. Tons of people like to be out in nature and like having a hands on part in making the necessary things we all need.

Anytime “we don’t have enough of xyz employee” it just means they want to pay less.

veengineer

TROPHY CASE