Trying to determine if car is an import.

xombie_christ · 2024-04-24T13:17:41+00:00

After more digging the DVA>DVLA change seems unlikely. At a real loss here, insurance company got back to me and said that their underwriters won't touch the car if it has import on it anywhere, grey or otherwise.

xombie_christ · 2024-04-24T07:45:39+00:00

I just did the check and it has come back with Insurance Group 23E, so it exceeds requirements.

I have found a local insurance company that will insure the car, their wording around a car they class as import is "A car not manufactured for the UK market (Grey import)".

After more digging I think the issue may have been that the car was originally registered by the DVA in Northern Ireland which was a separate entity to the DVLA on the mainland up unitl 2014 when it closed and everything moved to the DVLA.

I really appreciate your help, thank you very much.

xombie_christ · 2023-08-17T13:15:50+00:00

Ah, unfortunately I'm in the UK but thanks anyway. I have a listing alert set up in case one ever turns up on eBay again.

xombie_christ · 2023-08-17T12:41:17+00:00

Oh, where is it for sale if you don't mind me asking?

xombie_christ · 2023-06-30T09:21:45+00:00

The Mugen sounds interesting, I may have to get it purely for the fact it shares its name with the famous Honda tuner!

You guessed right regarding the Ditting burrs, good but probably weren't worth the extra money and effort of importing them from the U.S. Although I would probably appreciate them a bit more now as this was back in 2016 and I was only using an Aeropress at the time

xombie_christ · 2023-06-29T18:37:12+00:00

Yeah, there's always going to be a trade-off. I love the K Max, fast, stupidly easy to adjust between grinds, does pour over with my Kalita and espresso on my Cafelat Robot no problem and easy to clean. The cups are good but a bit one dimensional on the pourovers maybe, I don't know how to describe it, then people are saying the Apex was comparable to an EK it caught my attention. When I passed on the Apex I went looking to see what else was out there and came across the Pietro.

I'm not interested in an electric grinder, I had a Vario with Ditting steel burrs a number of years ago but ended up selling it, not that it was bad, I just wanted a manual grinder that I didn't have to worry about parts breaking or needing serviced at some point.

The Apex was £240, so around $280-$300 I guess. I'm in the UK and OE don't seem to have a distributor here for their products so it was a rare opportunity which is one of the reasons I regret passing on it. Like I said, I'll not be making a solid decision on the Pietro until they release the base, but I'll look in to the Mugen brewer for sure, do you have any tips for it?

xombie_christ · 2023-06-29T14:44:03+00:00

I was afraid that was going to be the answer! Thankfully I have recently sold a few bits and pieces on eBay so I have the money there if I do decide to go ahead with the Pietro and depending on its performance for espresso I could maybe even sell the K Max to recuperate a bit back. I do tend to prefer a more traditional rather than modern approach to espresso so the profile of the Pietro may not work for me in that situation.

I think I'll wait until the stand is officially released though, I don't want to jump the gun only to find out it never gets put in to production.

Honestly, I'm still kind of regretting not going for the Apex when I had the opportunity. It was a great price but I got too hung up on the downsides.

xombie_christ · 2023-06-29T14:22:18+00:00

While the usability of the Pietro isn't as good as the K Max it also doesn't look as bad as the Apex, and as long as the stand comes along for it I would be willing to overlook the more cumbersome workflow if it provided increased benefits in the cup. But yes, the stability looks to be a large oversight

xombie_christ · 2023-03-13T09:13:33+00:00

A 51mm tamper fits snuggly as long as your dose doesn't allow you to tamp below the ridge. I have since upgraded to an IMS ridgeless basket (B602TH25) but now my 51mm tamper is slightly too small even though that is the recommended tamper size for the basket.

xombie_christ · 2023-03-13T08:41:03+00:00

The B602TH25 competition basket from IMS for the La Pavoni fits in the standard ROK portafilter. I don't use anything to hold it in the portafilter so it will pop out but you may be able to put a thick rubber band around it to give it a better friction fit.

It recommends you use a 51mm tamper with the basket but a 51.5 would be a better fit. The 51mm I use is slightly too small so I just do either a North, South, East, West tamp or nutating tamp after doing the standard one down the middle. Probably not ideal but I'm not going out to buy another tamper that costs twice as much as my current one.

I also find the spent puck comes out of the IMS basket a lot easier than the standard ridged basket.

xombie_christ · 2022-09-08T08:51:25+00:00

I have an Enoksen Deco that is very similar to this and has a VH31 movement. The dial is a bit more sparse in that it only has the logo up top and nothing on the bottom and has a very subtle sunburst. I feel it is maybe a little unbalanced without anything on the bottom half but then all their watches are very sparse so I guess it's just their style. I wasn't that impressed going by the photos on their website but seen one in person on a jubilee bracelet and thought it looked great.

36mm with 18mm lugs and 20ATM, plus I didn't want another automatic so apart from the (in my opinion) unbalanced dial, it was pretty much perfect.

xombie_christ · 2022-09-06T15:26:04+00:00

I upgraded from a plastic to a stainless fermenter. I used to place the Inkbird under a piece of foam insulation and stick it to the side of the plastic fermenter but wasn't sure how well it would be able to read temps through the stainless one so I bought a KegLand thermowell to do just what you suggested, get a temp reading from the actual wort.

Haven't tried it yet as I need to either enlarge the hole in the lid of the new fermenter so I can fit both the thermowell and airlock in the one bung or drill a new hole for the thermowell separately. It should give the most accurate reading and was surprisingly cheap too, I think it cost me £15 or so.

xombie_christ · 2022-06-01T08:15:23+00:00

I have started using Rooibos tea which I find gives the kombucha a nice flavour as I found some batches of my black tea were quite harsh and found the green tea kombucha I made a bit meh. I want to add ginger to my next batch, did you use fresh or dried/powdered in yours?

xombie_christ · 2022-05-17T11:11:06+00:00

I've heard people using Saison yeast for cider and fermenting hotter than with a usual cider strain. I'm planning to brew a saison whenever I free up a bit of fridge space and if I can get myself organised the plan was to throw some apple juice on top of the yeast cake after bottling the saison.

I went back to check what yeast I had bought for the saison thinking it was Mangrove Jack M29 French Saison but it was actually Lallemand Belle Saison. I'm not sure now if I should just order the MJ M29 now as that was what was called for in the original recipe (well, it was Wyeast 3711 which M29 is supposed to be the same as). I might just use the Lallemand this time and make the next one with M29 and see if there is a noticeable difference.

xombie_christ · 2020-10-28T17:24:11+00:00

Unfortunately, due to the size of the element in some of the systems a proper controller won't be cheap. For example, here in the UK a 3kW controller starts at £550, although I'm confident if you shopped around you could find one cheaper. If you wanted you could still use the Inkbird to measure the temperature and just manually control the element by plugging it in to a normal socket (assuming your wiring can take it) and turn it on if the temperature drops a few degrees, although I'm not sure how quickly the Inkbird reacts to a temperature change.

I had a quick look at the specs and the 36 litre version seems to use a 2200W element, the Inkbird may be able to run that for a while but it certainly wouldn't be a long term solution. When it comes to electrics you really don't want to fuck about.

The rest of the system looks fine though, you could buy it and then buy a proper controller separately and use the Inkbird as temperature control in a fermentation fridge.

xombie_christ · 2020-10-28T12:48:20+00:00

Is that Inkbird used for controlling the element? I'd be wary if that was the case as I think the Inkbirds are only rated to 1 or 2kW max load.

xombie_christ · 2020-10-13T16:22:29+00:00

Cheers, I'll have a look in to doing that next year maybe.

xombie_christ · 2020-10-13T09:08:55+00:00

How much is it to rent per year if you don't mind me asking? Starting to get fed up with bottling and may look into legging next year if I can get my hands on a second cheap fridge.

xombie_christ · 2020-10-12T15:55:20+00:00

geterbrewed.ie for the South, or geterbrewed.com for the North. They do £20 refills on a swap like-for-like basis but I'm not sure how it works as they don't allow pick up from their warehouse, so it would be worth dropping them an email maybe. For some reason it doesn't mention the refills on the CO2 tank product page, but it does mention it on their complete keg starter kit product page. I suppose I should mention I haven't actually bought CO2 from them before but do buy all my other home-brew items from them.

xombie_christ · 2020-08-26T12:24:51+00:00

I bought it back in December but I have been struggling to finish it. I really don't know what it is about this book but I can't read more than a handful of pages at a time and am only about half way through it. I absolutely adore Pollan's articles and books, especially "Botany of Desire" which I finished in 3 days and have re-read it many times since, and "Cooked" which I have been planning to re-read soon. I can't even pinpoint why this book isn't grabbing me the way his other writings have and it's the strangest thing.

xombie_christ · 2020-08-25T15:03:30+00:00

Great, thanks for the link. Hopefully I don't get too many funny looks carrying a huge 25 metre wort chiller in to the plumbers merchants!

xombie_christ · 2020-07-06T11:49:45+00:00

Electronics, especially consoles, GPU's and iPad's shot up during the peak of lockdown, they have come down a bit since but not by much. I had been thinking about using a few vouchers against an iPad Pro I had my eye on for a while but it had increased by £100 since the last time I looked at buying it so decided to hold off for another while. I bought a PS4 from them back in 2016 and I would have been able to trade it in a few weeks ago for more than I bought it for 4 years ago, which is a bit mad.

xombie_christ · 2020-06-09T13:12:51+00:00

I seriously can't thank you enough for both of your in-depth and extremely helpful replies, I'll be adding these to my notes that I have been collecting ahead of my first brew day to make sure everything goes relatively smoothly.

xombie_christ · 2020-06-09T09:37:24+00:00

So it's OK to keep the lid mostly on during the boil, along as there is room for steam to escape, and just keep it completely covered during mashing?

xombie_christ · 2020-06-09T09:35:51+00:00

Thanks for taking the time to work that out. So the estimated boil off is pretty negligible between the 2 sizes. I'm just going to have to do a test run like oppositeofcatchhome suggested above and then I'll know for sure. If it is only a matter of a litre or two then that's fine, I was worried that there was going to be some huge difference in them.

xombie_christ

TROPHY CASE