The Mirror I have got came with to me what looks like a confusing spinnaker setup. As I am new to sailing I thought that I would remove this as I wouldn’t be using a spinnaker for a long while. There picture are to help me try and remember how to put it all back together if I ever need to!
We have decided to sell our campervan, more details are available on the following page of the website More Info
My CD player stopped working- it basically didn’t seem to realise there was a CD in it. I decided to replace the optical pickup. I followed these instructions:
The old optical pickup was a philips VAM1201/11 I got this replacement, Ebay VAM1202 it seems to be a straight swap. I got a replacement unit that had all the wires to the two motors already soldered on as I wasn’t sure I would have been able to manage that!
So far it is all working fine playing Yo La Tengo. The only problem I have is that the CD tray does not open unless there is a CD in there. I am not sure why- I think it might be the magnets that hold the CD in place might be slightly stronger in the new optical pickup.
This was my first go at an all grain brew,
The process I followed was mash the grain in the cool box at about 65°c for an hour.
Then I batch sparged them with water at about 75°c.
Following this it was time for the boil for an hour with various hop addition. The results and ingredients will be posted to this page Beer when I have bottled it.
After I said in a previous post that I wouldn’t recommend anything again and then went on to recommend a few things I am going to do it again. I was chatting to a friend and they asked for some “media” recommendations I said that I would put them in a email but then I thought I would put them in a blog post.
Recommendation are hard because you don’t want to recommend something then somebody spent there time on it only for them to not like it so sorry if you don’t like any of these things!
podcasts
film/tv
music
I love aubergine, I think they are probably one of the best things to eat.
I seem to be making a lot of fermented food at the moment so thought I would make some sour Aubergines
Rough method
This didn’t work for me as they went all moldy which I don’t think they are meant to.
So i started to make this drink 
I have now drunk some and it doesn’t taste great it is sharp and has a bit of a bite to it. In summary not very nice. My wife described it as ermm a slightly weird beer tangy taste, and asked what could be put with it to make it nicer! I didn’t have any ideas. 
If you haven’t watched the dectorists I really think you should. It is lovely program that makes you think that everything will be alright. This article about the dectorists sums it up nicely. So you should go and watch all three series of it now. Enjoy. If you don’t enjoy don’t blame me!
The third series is on iplayer here but watch from the first.
I was looking up bread recipes, as I wanted to make some bread but then I got distracted by a recipe for Khlibnyy kvas- Russian fermented rye drink. It is the very last recipe in Olia Hercules’ book Mamushka This needs 200 grams of dried rye bread crusts. So I thought I would make some.
I search for how to make Rye bread and as ever the Guardian knows how to make the perfect Rye bread It was fairly easy to follow and I left it over night to prove. It didn’t get much bigger.
The bread was fairly solid with a beery taste it was not unpleasant but fairly heavy. I have saved some in the freezer to make the drink at a later date.
Now to the Sauerkraut– I decided to put some in a jar and put it in the fridge this way it will carry on fermenting but a lot slower than it would have done at room temperature. I also heated up a couple of jars and put these in the back of a cupboard to maybe enjoy in a year or so. Heating up the Sauerkraut kills all the bacteria so the fermentation cannot continue. Some people say this means that it won’t taste as good and won’t have the full health benefits of unheated sauerkraut. This page explains a bit more about it.
There is a bit of scum and it tastes a lot of onion. I should have tried making it without the onion.
I am going to leave it a bit longer before I put it in the jars. When it goes into the jars this will stop the fermentation process.
