Thinking about self-hosting gotify but it seems that to do so, at least to support gotify-up, I’ll need to recompile nginx to include the lua module.. I’ve not done this since I built my proxy server a few years back, so now wondering what other modules I should add in if I’m going to recompile anyway..

We’re off for another sex scan of our incoming baby today as the sonographer wasn’t 100% sure when she said we’re likely having a girl.

As it isn’t NHS this time they are a little less strict on how many folk can come along so our daughter and my mum are coming.. which gives us a 50-50 split on preference.. (although that would also be the case if it were just the two of us).

There will be a few disappointed people around these parts a little later..

Has anyone seen my manual lying about? I seem to have forgotten how to engage study mode and have to work on an assignment today..

Just tapped my first original recipe stout whilst waiting on the current brew stage to complete.

I am sipping it with a big smile on my face. It should be conditioned and poured with a nitrogen mix or just nitrogen and I have neither but it is very tasty and very definitely a stout. Chuffed!

Just before I started my brew kit cleaning and sanitisation routine tonight, I started cold brewing some cacao nibs and chestnut flour..

This may or may not be a standard practice in brewing for one of those ingredients (not being coy, I genuinely don’t know) but for the other shrug .. it seems to me to be a likely step in nut milk creation so makes sense (again, no nut milk recipes were consulted).. I quite probably have the liquid to solid ratios completely askew..

..but this is the type of brewer I want to become, somewhat experimental but with these leaps being grounded in my understanding of many years of cooking.. I can’t believe that my nervous, unprepared answer in Japanese in my recent interview regarding why I want to make beer and not whisky (asked because you know, I’m Scottish) is actually a guiding principle..

It’s going to be interesting one way or the other..

In my Beer52 box yesterday there was a Raspberry Stout, which made me very happy, a pairing of my favourite beer style with my favourite fruit!

Whilst reading the can I spotted that the brewers also used molasses which raised an eyebrow.. not that molasses are very unusual in beer just that they aren’t normally a featured or highlighted ingredient..

Needless to say that it was the first beer I drank from the box.. now I am starting to question whether or not I was reading too much into the word raspberry.. as the beer tasted exactly like molasses and the raspberry was imperceptible.

If you name an ingredient in the presented style of your beer, it really should be a detectable flavour.

Kegged my first original stout yesterday, it’s meant to be a vegan sweet stout and it hit a final gravity of 1.024 which I think qualifies it as a sweet stout, though certainly not cloyingly so.

Pre-conditioning it tastes quite nice but I wish I had nitrogen to enhance the beer, will stick with CO2 though and am sure that I’m going to enjoy drinking this beer.

If it does drink as well as I suspect it will then I’ll be delighted to have nailed it on first go. I applied a lot of my learning to the recipe and brew day design so it will be testament to me moving in the right direction. Also, I have soooo many recipe ideas based on a stout so fun times lie ahead!

Today, as a 44 year old adult, I met a 20 year old adult who was recently introduced to me by letter from her mum as my sister. That wasn’t the primary reason for the letter but certainly, as far as I am concerned, the most important part.

We’ve been lightly chatting via email and matrix since then but today we both overcame our anxiety and met for the first time.

Aside from an early morning covid scare and the torrential rain in Edinburgh, today was a fantastic day.

I’ve made a start on assignment number 2 (just organising thoughts etc.) and despite the odds I’m feeling pretty confident about this one.. it involves statistics 💤 and sensory analysis 🤨.. requires tables, various charts and scientific reporting as well as assessing brew sheets and making recommendations in regards to adjustments to recipe and process in order to more closely match a control beer.. That’s a whole lot of work for just 25% of the course mark..

.. however, even though I have zero experience in statistics or analysis and am not particularly excited by either.. I still feel like this assignment is one which I can nail.. if I can find the enthusiasm to learn about calculating standard deviations and figuring out what the feck ANOVA is..

So apparently due to covid it’ll take about 5-6 months for our stuff to get from Scotland to Japan when we move.. which is a shade longer than expected.. I guess I’ll be sending my SBCs separately by airmail..