Looking for some neat ideas/quality of life improvements aka lifehacks I guess
Sisal soap bag. Collect the stubby soap ends and they stay nice and dry hanging up in the shower. Then use the bag as a scrubby loofah. Such a good idea.
Beer
YMMV; My life has improved greatly since I am not buying beer anymore.
Cigs
I was in the right place, right time, found a solid, hardwood dresser at Goodwill for $30!
An Instant Pot. The amount of things you can cook / steam / pressure cook is amazing. I cook as much as I can with it as it saves money on using gas cookers. It saves a huge amount of time and money cooking Indian food and there are hundreds of websites out there dedicated to recipes specifically for the instant pot
I bought a mead kit from Golden Hive Mead.
Haven’t started yet. Need to get in touch with a local bee keeper for some honey yet.
👋 fellow homebrewer (do we have a homebrew community here yet?)
My advice: your first mead is probably gonna be more of a learning experience. Go to costco and buy a big bottle of honey (3lbs), mix it with a gallon of water, and some nutrients.
Most cost effective way to try it out without blowing a ton of money. My first mead was terrible, and i spent a ton of money on good local honey.
My second mead i spent even more on better honey and strawberries, to apply everything i learned. Came out amazing
Thanks for the tip! I might do that, cause yeah this will be first. What do you mean by nutrients? Is that something I should be looking for? I assumed everything I’d need should be in the kit (except honey) so I’d like to make sure.
So i don’t know what kit you have or what it came with but here’s everything I would use:
Equipment:
- Star San (make sure everything is sanitized, also don’t rinse this stuff out – “don’t fear the foam”)
- Airlock (and bung)
- Fermenter (I like big mouth bubblers, but your kit should have come with something)
- A spoon
Ingredients:
- Honey (I do 3lbs per gal)
- Water (I use store bought water, because I’m paranoid lol)
- If you’re using fresh fruit, pectic enzyme (this helps break down haze in the mead from the fruit)
- Fermaid-O (this is the nutrients)
- Wine Tanin (optional, for aging)
- Yeast (you can get some cheap yeast on Amazon – I used Red Star “Cote Des Blancs” for my strawberry mead, but your kit probably came with this)
Watch some YouTube videos to get a feel for the process. I enjoy City Stead Brewing, they have tons of recipes and helpful tips. Also, if you’re gonna bottle and stuff you’ll need wine bottles, a siphon and bottling wand, corks, and a corker. You can bottle in swing-top bottles, but I haven’t had good luck with those (apparently they’re not great for long term storage >.>)
Like i said though, for your first mead it’s probably best to KISS. I appreciate being able to get a feel for the process and then experimenting later on. I’ve only made two meads, but have made wine and a LOT of beer in the past – so if you have more questions just lmk!
An AeroPress for making coffee. It’s functions sorta like a drip brewer, french press, and espresso machine, all at the same time. but super simple. It’s really just a giant syringe for making coffee.
Such a game changer. I’ve just used drip brewers my entire life. And it was fine. But AeroPress-brewed coffee is soooo much better. So much smoother. Not nearly as bitter as drip brewed.
Thank you to James Hoffman for the recommendation.
Countertop drum crank cheese grater. So much better buying whole blocks of cheese and grating tons fresh than buying the bags of pre-grated stuff.
That is 60% of the reason my mother owns a KitchenAid Mixer. The other 40% is Potato Spiralizer.
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Pomade stick. Looks kinda like deoderant but you use it on your hair. I have long hair and get flyaways like crazy, especially when I tie my hair back. Works wonders.
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A stainless steel Casio watch. Looks nice and will allow me to tell the time at work since I won’t be allowed to have my phone on me most of the time.
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If you’re at all mechanical or work on cars/bikes or a homeowner, the Knipex Pliers Wrench is an excellent tool. It’s a set of leveraged adjustable parallel jaw pliers. So basically you can grab nuts, bolts, or anything with flats with tremendous leverage, and you can do it quickly on a range of sizes. Almost infinitely better than a crescent (adjustable) wrench, fills the spot of a whole set of open-ended box wrenches, and they’re excellent German engineering. Come in a range of sizes (bc there’s still different uses for big and small). Roughly $50-60 each, but sets are cheaper per. Plus, harbor freight makes a nice dupe of the 10in/250mm for $40 (find a coupon tho).
I was on the fence for a while, but I adore the tool and wish I had it years earlier. For most people, a 7in/180mm and 10in will fill most needs. The hype is real. Lifetime warranty too if you buy from authorized retailer (habor freight is also lifetime eyy)
Scented candles in my office. Makes my work feel much more cozy and less stressful.
Cast iron griddle, scraper, and chef weight. I should have bought these years ago. I use the griddle and scraper daily.
For the weak like myself, carbon steel is also a great option!
This Stihl Vacuum shredder/blower. Like a leafblower, but instead of just blowing the leaves pointlessly around it sucks them up, shreds them a bit and dumps them in a big bag - and its electric. Terrific piece of kit, quiet and effective and oh so satisfying to use, I go over the driveway and garden with it every day or two (we have a lot of trees surrounding our place which constantly drop masses of leaves)
Sound Cancelling headphones, one of the best buys in my life, as an autistic person it really helps a lot, for going about the day to day.
What model, and could I get your opinion/recommendation on them? I’ve had a pair of “JBL Tune 760NC” headphones for a few months now and they’re okay, but the noise cancelling isn’t nearly as good as I’d hoped.
I got a touch-pump soap dispenser for my kitchen. Just put the the sponge on the device, push down, and now you got a soapy sponge. Saves time but I’m old so ymmv.
The aeropress coffee maker and a coffee grinder. I threw my kurig machine in the trash after making my first aeropress coffee.
Bit of a waste if it was a perfectly good machine?
I would be creating more waste with the k cups if I kept the Keurig
I have been using the same reusable k-cup for years now, so you can get around that issue.
This is true. I still enjoy my aeropress.
