52 Weeks 52 Tests - Week 16 - Sending a Message in a Bottle (2.0)

I have always loved the poetry of leaving a message out there for the world to grab, some sort of statement, or no statement at all, just randomly send random crap to some random people.

Yup, that's about as much explanation as I can give for now on why I love the concept of a Message In A Bottle.

Your archetypal message in a bottle

Of course, at the time it was invented (maybe by survivors who wished to be rescued?), sending a bottle to the sea was probably some kind of romantic act, and I like that idea. I like the fact that waves and currents would end up linking two people in a maybe-not-so-random way by carrying a piece of glass and a few words.

Now this is all pretty cool and I thought that it is something that I never did before, and it is stupid enough to be attempted carelessly for the sake of a blogger's experiments.

I prepared my message in a bottle, with a few twists, as I want it to be more like a surprise packet full of little quirks and micro presents worth pondering on.

Container:

• a transparent Plastic bottle.

Content:

• a Coffee&Art&Design sticker 
• 2 salted butter caramels from Brittany, France (with the packet label for reference)
• a Durex FeatherLite condom
• a 1 Singapore dollar coin
• a 1 British pound coin
• a 1 Euro coin
• a Polaroid from my 30th birthday, on which I wear a mustache, and hold a cat woman
• a Lucky Strike light cigarette
• a Marina Bay Sands promotional matchstick box for immediate enjoyment of the above. 
• a USB stick containing my favorite albums
• a pair of fully functional (yet very crappy) Panasonic headphones
• a business card for contacting me and ask WHY ON EARTH I would pack so much randomness in a small plastic bottle. 
• a handwritten note, giving the start of an explanation and a personal touch. 

Disclaimer: the above contents do not necessarily my thoughts or that of my company, and any resemblance with an actual person, living or dead, is purely coincidental. 

These things just happen to be small and in the way the day I assembled this. 

I was getting excited of throwing this bottle in the sea for a random Indonesian, Malay, Thai, or Philipino on its local beach on a lazy leisurely walk.
I shared the project with my friend, who replied, in a pragmatic tone "Well, it is littering"

Shockingly enough, for a guy whom supposedly care about the planet, i had not realised the potential negative impact of my endeavour.

Indeed, our seas do not need another bottle to surf on their surface and land on a beach on which it will never be found.

Not sure I want to directly add up to that.

Damn it, I have to re-think about a sustainable way of living for this Message in a Bottle... 

I think I found, but can't yet post about it. Stay tuned.

For the comprehensive list of my weekly tests so far this year, click here

52 Weeks 52 Tests - Week 15 - Writing a Letter to a Hero

(disclaimer: i am really really behind my writing schedule, for several reasons, one being me sliding deliberately to the wild side, so in order to catch up fast, I'll just make quick and dirty posts of the previous weeks experiments)

I wrote by hand a thank you note to Woody Allen.
I totally did.
They say one has to be grateful for the joys he has in life, and take the chance to thank those responsible for your happiness.


Well, there is not a single Woody Allen movie I haven't, at least, enjoyed watching. Some of his works totally cracked me up, and I'm very tough on comedies. His wit is like an Alka-Selzer for my brain, an iodine bomb that clears the skies of Human dumbness.

I could have chosen a serious leader, a fighter for some cause I truly believe in. But somehow, I place the quality of making people laugh (especially with otherwise deep subjects) above many others. 

Thanks Woody. You rock. Please keep making me laugh.

For the comprehensive list of my weekly tests so far this year, click here

52 Weeks 52 Tests - Week 17 - Making Beer at Home

In the land of Tiger beer and cramped accommodation, who would want to go through the hassle of crafting its own brew? Hipsters?
Probably, I definitely have a hipster side, except I don't dress like one. No, I am too normcore for that...

Anyway, for this 17th week of experimentation in 2015, I got a Beer Making Kit from US hipsters from Brooklyn Brew Shop, and ordered via Singapore's HipVan...

The kit packs everything special you might need for the DIY endeavor.

I soon realised how short I fall in terms of kitchen equipment. I lacked many things, from large enough recipients for the wort, containers large enough for sanitizing the utensils items, a large strainer and even a funnel... But you can always make do, so I got started anyway.

The Mash

It all starts with the Mash, which is basically like making oatmeal with the grains. It was pretty tough to keep the temperature in the range of 61 to 68 degrees Celsius as advised, and I had to turn on & off the stove regularly and check every 5 minutes...

I was drinking Sapporo beer whilst making my own, to give me courage.
Unexpectedly, when I return to the living room whilst waiting for having to stir the pot again, I had a sip of Sapporo but connected with it on a different level as I was distinctly tasting the grains underlying the beverage.

A beautiful sensation, really.

The Sparge

Once you have "mashed out", the goal is to suck all the fermentable sugars out of the grain and collect them through the liquid called “wort” (pronounced “wert”). After adding the hot grain mash to the strainer, additional hot water at 77 degrees Celsius is added to the strainer, as you collect the liquid passing through that will become the beer...

The Boil

Once about 4.75 liters of wort are collected, it's time to boil it for 60 minutes, and to add the hops...

2 classic varieties of hops (Columbus and ChinHook) came in granules, in cute "sous-vide" little sachets, and they smell absolutely wonderful... I even kept the sachets to sniff them again later...

Columbus hops

Every 15 minutes, for one hour, you should pitch in a few hops. At this stage, it really started to smell more like beer, and less like a sweet grain mash.

The Fermentation

After giving the boiled wort an ice bath and bringing its temperature down to 21 degrees (not a small feat in Singapore's 30 degrees average climate, which cost me half of 5kg 7-Eleven Ice bags and the use of all my sportsman icepack), it is time to let the magic happen and the fermentation begin.

Sounds easy enough, but without a large strainer and a funnel, how do you transfer 4+ liters of wort into the glass fermenter without splashing liquid everywhere... I dug a hole in the cap of a protein powder bottle I had saved before (had no idea why it could be useful but I had somehow sensed it would, one day, pretty happy about that :-). Then I secured the strainer on top of the protein-jar funnel with my beloved duct tape and started pouring in the soon-to-become beer.

Then pitched the yeast, and shook aggressively to wake it up and kick start fermentation.
At 2.20 am I was done with the hardest part of the process, tired but happy.

Ta-da!  

In 2 to 3 weeks, I should have a gallon of beer, ready to be bottled, refrigerated, and consumed. I wonder how it will turn out...

Stay tuned ;-)

Update D+1: It's bubbling! Signs that fermentation is in progress...

For the comprehensive list of my weekly tests so far this year, click here