Look, I've just made...

[Jussi Viljami Karjalainen]

Feel free to post whatever you've made recently right here. =)

Why doesn't this forum have a "Look, I've just made..." thread? It's one of the best things on any forum, usually. Oh well, let's make one then.

To get the ball rolling:

I've just made some beer!

[Beatminister]

Good idea, this thread.
You made beer? Like, to sell it? Or only for own use? You are finnish I assume, so it could make sense... Here in Germany its much cheaper and easier to simply buy beer if you want some. And if you you want beer with lemon, you put lemon juice in it.

I also made a couple of things lately, just need to make some photos of it. But in the next days I'll post something.

[Jussi Viljami Karjalainen]

It's illegal to sell alcohol products without a ton of licenses, and you also need a ton more licenses and certifications to actually be allowed to produce beer for sale (or pretty much any food or drink really). So yeah, for my own use and to give away to people as gifts.

The material costs for making beer yourself are quite low, in the vicinity of 1 to 1.5 € per liter depending on your recipe. The high end for a pretty heavily hopped IPA, hops are the most expensive part often, a low hop recipe like a traditional weizen could easily be more like 0.65 € per liter. You can get cheaper I'm sure, but from what I've seen of beer prices in Germany you'd still have to look into less than premium brands at that point. Can't argue on the convenience point though. =)

But then there's the whole hobby aspect of it. I'm not doing this to save money, I'm doing this because I think it's interesting, allows me to experiment and at the end I have beer to show for it. It's quite cheap and convenient to buy bread from the corner shop as well, but I still like to bake myself every now and then. I also like to make fudge and other candy and foodstuffs. Beer is just an extension of that. The experimentation is also a big part of it, I can make things that simply aren't available in stores, like a super duper hoppy double IPA that'd ruin any commercial company. =)

[Invincible]

Well, even with a cheaper brand in Germany you'll most likely end up around 1,00 - 1,10 € / L if you're buying bottled beer. But it's about the fun.

Like making your own sushi. When it comes to sushi, you most likely end up being more expensive than just buying it in a restaurant and, at the beginning at least, it will taste nowhere as good. But it's nice to learn something new. It took me seven or eight tries to have the rice even edible. And another 20 or more to reach a point where I can say: "This actually tastes good."

Also, when crafting beer for example, you are free to try something new. Tune the recipe to your likings. You can't do that with a bought beer.

[balderz002]

I recently made a 1/24 Tamiya Calsonic Skyline (R33), and am currently working on a Monogram 427 Cobra and a Tamiya 911GT1 from the 1997 Le Mans race in BMS Scuderia colours.

First time I have tried cars.

[Invincible]

I am currentlz making a scratch tree for my cats.
The bought ones don't last long and so I've decided to make my own from a strong branch of solid wood. Got myself a nice piece of apple tree and now I am skinning the tree (missus doesn't want the bark in the living room).
When I finished skinning it (whish isn't going as fast as I want it to because the wood hasn't dried yet), I'll wrap the branch with sisal rope and screw three wooden platforms and a heavy base onto it which will then be padded and covered with cowskin / fur.

[Tomcul]

I made a poo about half hour ago........didn't take a picture tho!!
I also rebuilt a 2.4 tdci transit engine today..

[Beatminister]

@Jussi & Invincible: Of course there is nothing wrong about the idealist approach. Its just that I watched a test on TV about so called "DIY beer kits". Its a big bucket plus the needed ingredients to make 25L of beer - for a price of 25 - 50 Euro. In the best case you end up with 25L of beer (sort of, sure not premium class). If you make a mistake, you end up with 25L of smelly goo worth 50 Euro.

However, what counts is that you have fun doing it. I'm making leather sheath for knifes and carving wooden spoons, and nobody would pay me a reasonable price related to the amount of time it takes, even going by the minimum wage law. But I dont care, since I can be creative that way and like to look at the result of my work at the end.

[Jussi Viljami Karjalainen]

Well doing kit beer is one thing, there you're mostly dealing with ready made extracts and doing silly things like brewing a "lager" while using an ale yeast... That stuff isn't worth the effort. Those things often, even usually tell you to put bloody sugar into the mix to increase the original gravity (or the extract could contain rice, corn etc. crap). While using dark sugar or honey is appropriate for some styles, adding sugar (or rice or corn for that matter) just to increase the amount of fermentables in the wort and bump up the alcohol content without getting any of the malt flavors isn't going to end up with a good beer. It also doesn't help that the extracts are way way way more expensive than proper malts are.

Going whole grain however, getting the malted grains, mashing them yourself to extract the sugars, boiling and hopping the beer yourself, making sure you're only using actual stuff that good beer is made out of and using a good yeast will quite easily make a very nice beer. Sure, it can get infected and go wrong, but that's much rarer than you'd think and can be avoided by A) cleaning and sanitizing your gear properly, which really isn't that hard, and B) not messing about with the beer too much (checking it all the time, opening up the lid unnecessarily, etc.). The main difference between all-grain homebrewing and commercial brewing is the scale.

And honestly, the homebrews I've had have easily surpassed the vast majority of beer I can buy from a store. If you use a good recipe (of which there are tons) and do everything seriously (keeping track of temperatures and times is important for consistency) a homebrew has nothing to be shamed of when compared to even the best commercial manufacturers. =)

But yeah, the main part is the hobby aspect of it. It's just something that's really fun and interesting to do, and you can drink the results. =)

[Beatminister]

Here are some sheath I made for the big bowie type of knifes I have. The knifes I dont make myself, I just give them a luxury sharpening, lanyard ext. on demand.
The two dark sheath are made of bull leather, the toughest I have used so far. Almost bullet proof. The light one is cow saddle leather, and its designed for left handers.

Its just part of my hobby handcrafting, I also make sheath for medival daggers and personal knifes, sarascene daggers, trapper knifes and other. Also belts with matching buckles in celtic, medival and western style.
Sometimes I also carve sheath and spoons out of fine wood, like ebony, red wood, purple wood and such. May be I post something of that another day.