Baking with Beer -- Beer Bread

If you like the flavor of beer and the wholesomeness of bread, then you'd definitely love beer bread. It's incredibly easy to make.

Loaf is love, loaf is life

Food that Food Eats -- Garden Update 11/5

Remember, remember the 5th of November. Well I'm not too much for a revolution, unless it's a food revolution. Anyway, now that all my parts from Hong Kong have arrived, I can run the pump without fear of water siphoning back into it (check valves arrived). It has been incredibly windy this week, so I've had the misfortune of some leaves being ripped off lettuce/bok choy. I was impressed by the flavor in the severed leaves though.

DOWNSTAIRS

It's easy to tell the romaine apart from the leaf lettuce now that its bigger

Fabricating a Bicycle Seatpost

I had intended to make a new seatpost for my bike because the original one wouldn't go high enough.  My bike's frame is almost 10 sizes too small for me, but I've been able to manage by getting a stem extender and raising the saddle as high as it would go.  So high, that the minimum insertion line was exposed, and it still felt too low.

I was planning on finding some tube to turn one down from until I found some conspicuously shaped tubing for free on the streets.  They were about 4 feet long 1" tubes that were reduced to 7/8" on the ends.  7/8" just happens to be a standard dimension for saddle attachment hardware, and 1" happens to be a standard seatpost dimension.  The problem is, my seatpost is a 26.4mm (actual dimension 1.037" or 26.3mm) which meant I would need to make a shim.

Hydroponic system upgrade (Kratky to DWC)

After seeing the success of the system I built back at home, I decided that aeration was necessary for the system on my balcony. Previously, the plants sat in a static nutrient solution (known as the Kratky method). I added in a pump with 2 air stones to each of my growing bins.

Parts (check valve not pictured)

R-8 End Mill Holders

In my recent raids on the scrap bin at work, I found several R-8 shank blanks.  These are for making your own custom tool holders to go in the milling machine.  Since I only bought collets to hold 3/8" and 1/2" tools for my machine, this is the perfect opportunity to make holders for the other sizes as well as other things like slitting saw arbors and boring head adapters.  No sense leaving them all sit around looking like pepper grinders.