Been off on stress leave the last couple of days but I’m lucky to have an extremely supportive manager. They let me take the days off without using annual or sick leave. Also found a good psychotherapist through work’s EAP services which has helped.
this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2024
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That's really cool they let you do that. Hopefully you're feeling less stressed, and not sitting at home worrying about all the work that's piling up.
Part of the stress is that there’s no funding for the next 3 years and therefore very little work. There’s a wave of redundancies that’ll be announced this coming week.
Going to be tough.
Good luck, hopefully you'll get through unscathed.
Thanks. Unless something has drastically changed I’ll be safe but will be losing a lot of good colleagues.
Yeah that's usually the way. All that institutional knowledge gone.
Just got some Deadly Sin coffee beans.
The taste for me is great, strong but smooth, not the burnt taste some stronger coffee’s have. A blend of Robusta and Arabica beans hence the higher strength.
It’s tough commenting on-line suggesting foods, drinks, movies etc to others, it’s all a very personal preference.
Oooh, I was just looking at ordering more coffee. And the strength of the coffee (as in flavour not caffeine) is something I struggle to get right. Cafe coffee is always a lot stronger than what I make at home, even when I caefully measure proportions.
I might order a bag of this and give it a go!
Just some notes after a few days of Deadly Sin tasting. We found it really has a strong taste, but not burnt like some darker coffees. This makes it taste very strong yet smooth.
Mrs Floofah is not keen, too strong for her, so this morning I made a DIY blend 50% Deadly Sin and 50% Hummingbird Colombia. My blend was noticeably a less strong taste, but the blend has nicely perked up the Colombia.
TIL - roasting and blending coffee is a science.
Mine should arrive today! I ordered 500g which seems like a nice balance between bulk pricing and not having too much of a coffee I might not like.
I order 1kg of wine barrel aged coffee a while back, forgetting I don't like wine. Took me ages to get through it 😆
It’ll be interesting to hear how it goes for you. The Deadly Sin on-line marketing etc really grabbed me, made me keen to try it, so I guess it did its job for them.
How did you prepare yours? I tried an espresso today when the beans arrived and the flavour wasn't very strong. Definitely smooth, but not the strong flavour I was expecting in NZ's strongest coffee!
That’s interesting. I burr grind my own beans seconds before making the espresso’s. I had already adjusted my grind to espresso, and timed it to fill the portafilter, takes about 25 seconds and uses 20-22 gms ground coffee.
Once the grinder has filled the portafilter, I tamp it down with quite a significant press on the tamper. We don’t mess with the milk foamer, simply splash in a very small amount of cold Boring Barista oat milk to each cup. Then for me, a small sprinkle of chilli chocolate powder on top of the crema.
For our blend I simply mixed the beans 50/50 in tne grinder.
I ground it then immedietly used it, though I just have a cheap grinder.
Are you doing 60ml of espresso and a splash of milk? I had about 80ml of water in first to make a long black, the same amount I would normally use, and it was weaker in flavour than my other coffee.
I can try tamping it down more or grinding it more, but then I end up with less than 60ml of espresso with the preset double espresso setting. I figure if I am getting 60ml out (which I practiced by measuring it into a little measuring cup thingy) then I must have the grinding/tamping around what the manufacturers expect. I've definitely had issues getting the water through if I grind it too much!
We make ours using a 60ml double shot simultaneously into 2 cups, so 30ml coffee extracted onto 30ml of hot water already in each cup. Then a small, and I do mean small, splash of oat milk.
The tamping is very important, the coffee grinds in the portafilter should be very dense after tamping. My machine user guide suggests tamping at 25Kg. If you’re not getting a full 60ml shot, with your current grind, try extending the extraction time. Maybe don’t run it on auto, but manually start/stop.
My setup, not a high end machine, can’t cope with extra fine grinds. My extraction time for a double shot is around 30 secs.
What you describe sounds like under extraction, the coffee is thin and lacking in flavour. Can I suggest you experiment and not rely on the user guide suggestions?
I definitely think my method needs improvement. My machine extracts over about 15-20 seconds, any more and it's over extracted. I'm guessing this means I need to either grind a bit more or tamp a bit more. I struggle to tamp it any more with the plastic tamper that came with the machine, maybe I need to get a better one.
I'd like a better grinder as well, but a decent grinder costs more than my espresso machine 😆
What you could try is half filling the portafilter, then tamping, top it up and tamp again.
I tamp my portafilter by filling it to the rim with ground coffee, resting the portafilter head on the kitchen worktop, then really leaning into the tamping process, only a single tamp press for me. It should drop the coffee level 1-2mm.
I've ground it a bit longer and tried what you suggested tamping it twice, which sort of helped.
It definitely has more flavour, and I had extract for closer to 30s.
However, with the grounds so dense, when I take the portafilter off it has a pool of water on the top.
Mine does too, so after use, I remove it and leave the portafilter resting on the machine base. After a while, so typically before the next brew, it has dried enough to make the old coffee removal from the portafilter easier.
Glad to see your extract is better timed. It’s all very tricky on timing to suit the machines, certainly not a plug and play!!!
My machine instructions says water pooling on the portafilter is a sign you're doing something wrong 😆
certainly not a plug and play!!!
I had no idea how much this was going to be true! It looks so easy in the cafes 😆
I guess cafes need to run dozens, if not hundreds, of shots a day. Once they establish their process, and that’s typically biased to saving money, that’s when you find your home coffee tastes a million miles better than that from the local cafe.
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I have a loose definition of "week". This is the first thread in almost a month...
Anyway, a while back I asked about gateway routers, and @[email protected] recommended the Ubiquiti Dream Machine SE. I eventually built up the courage to spent that much money on it, and it arrived this week.
After a few challenges I managed to get it set up. It has now replaced my ISP router, and I've also replaced the Pi-hole with the UDM's options for local DNS entries and ad blocking. I also have set it up as a VPN client with Wireguard and ProtonVPN, and I can choose which devices are routed over the VPN and even customise it per domain so streaming services that don't like the VPN can be excluded.
I have a 300Mbps connection that normally averages about 280Mbps, and ProtonVPN lets me keep this speed (I'm on a paid plan).
The internet in general feels more snappy too, lower latency. I'm pretty happy with this purchase, and keen to get some cameras plugged into the PoE as soon as my wallet has recovered.
It begins! Here's a mug of kool-aid ;) So, who's taking odds on TTC and TTA*?
There's a legitimate criticisms to be made of Ubiquiti's products, but they perform very well, are relatively simple to setup and maintain and most importantly for me, you get a perpetual license in the up front purchase price - no annual ransomware like other similar providers. Plus you can host the controller yourself, you don't have to be tied to their cloud offering (if they even still bother with it).
I haven't setup their built-in ad blocking yet as the local DNS was a bit of a pain so I still use pi-hole for all my own home stuff's DNS anyway, and I have wireguard running off their box as I set that up when their implementation was very new and not quite what I was after. But only a matter of time before I switch to the same setup as yours.
*(time till cameras, time till access-points)!
Actually on cameras, I think Ubiquiti are adding Onvif support to Protect which should let you add non-Ubiquiti cameras to their setup too. Of course then you won't get the special detection features so i'll continue to use frigate & offload the "is human?" analysis to a GPU.
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Maybe time for an automod to make the thread? If that exists on Lemmy
Tools exist that can do it, but there's always a pinned post at the top of c/nz if anyone wants to post something or read something.
The problem with using a bot is that people with bots disabled won't see it! I also just don't really like the idea, it seems so impersonal. Perhaps a good compromise is setting up the posts in advance with a post scheduling tool, so it's not a bot but my account still posting them.
Good idea with the scheduled posting. I gravitate to these kinds of threads, mainly as sometimes I don’t really have anything relevant to add to news or political posts.
If we're gonna get nice and structured, what's a good day to post? I've normally been aiming either for a Monday or Friday as I think people tend to have more to talk about just before or just after a weekend (normally pretty quiet on weekends themselves).
Thoughts?
Maybe Friday? People are generally more relaxed on a Friday than Monday is my thinking..
I've scheduled the next post for Friday. Don't seem to be able to schedule it reoccurring quite with the complexity I need, but I'll try to keep em stacked up so they arrive on time each Friday.
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I snagged an OKJ Bronco for a great price a couple of weeks ago as a damaged packaging product. Turned out it was pretty much perfect inside except for a couple of small scratches which I covered up with enamel paint very easily.
Managed to hang a lamb leg in there last weekend which turned out delicious. Might try to do some ribs in there if the weather is decent this Sunday.
I've had my Bronco for a few years now and it is so good to use. Have done briskets, pork shoulders, ribs, chickens so far everything's been delicious.
Early on a cold morning it can be a little tricky to get the chimney drawing air well - so one trick i've recently learnt is to switch my vacuum pipe to the blow side and to force air into the inlet which seems to get it cranking pretty quickly :)
Oh, and as you mention Lamb, you really should treat yourself and try some West Kentucky style Mutton BBQ. It can be hard to get actual mutton, but it works with hogget too, its delicious and makes too much sense for NZ BBQ to not start adopting it!
Haha yes I actually figured out the same, I used my small battery workshop blower on low setting to force air into the inlet and it gets it going really quick. It has a flexible rubber nozzle so I can basically squeeze it into the inlet.
I don't think I've seen any mutton around, but I haven't really been looking. I'll have to keep an eye out.
Sadly I was too lazy to spritz my ribs yesterday and they ended up way too dry. They weren't the meatiest ribs either which didn't help, or I left it at too high a temp. I'll have to practice more!
I tend to wrap ribs pretty early in butcher paper (my butcher wraps everything, even if its in a vac bag in butcher paper so I get a supply without trying :) and that really helps to keep them moist. I do the same for bigger chunks of meat to get through the stall as well.
I wrapped in foil near the end, but had them hanging without the heat diffuser for too long I think. The meatier parts weren’t too bad, the thin parts were too dry though. I’m going to look for some meatier ones next time.
I meant to post this earlier - its an explainer on how West Kentucky ended up with Mutton BBQ and you'll see why I was instantly hooked that it was something New Zealand should be doing too.
https://www.foodrepublic.com/2012/03/13/a-year-of-barbecue-kentucky-mutton/
Honestly, that sounds pretty tasty, I’d definitely give that a try if I find some mutton!
Wow, that thing looks amazing!
I’ve been thinking about getting a drum smoker for awhile, but was expecting not to get one until next year sometime. I was kind of tossing up between this and a Pit Barrel Cooker, then the Bronco popped up on one of my saved sellers on Trademe and I had to jump on it.
Pretty happy with it so far!
I was so impressed with the quality of the Bronco that I bought one of their Rambler's as well. I use that when I just want to grill a couple of steaks for dinner, but my partner also bought be one of the Espeto Sul rotisseries, and I use that with the Rambler as its just about the perfect length for it. I got my brother to fabricate a baffle which lets me hold the lid open, but still keep the box closed for proper air draw & whatnot - its been great for chicken roasts!
I'm quite keen on their offset smokers too, but part of the deal with buying the Bronco was I had to get rid of one of my other BBQs (sold an old Weber Kettle) so I doubt i'll get the thumbs up to add another even bigger one to our collection!
The Rambler looks great but I currently have a Weber kettle as well, which serves most of my grilling purposes. Mainly setup with a vortex to do chicken wings and other pieces. I have an Espeto Sul too, but it's a bit annoying to use on the kettle. No one makes a riser for it, so can't do lid on. I've thought about getting a cheap second hand Weber Go Anywhere so I can get a riser to use with the rotisserie. But then I'm also wanting a tabletop hibachi so we can do korean bbq or yakitori for the kids..
I like the concept of an offset (and I've watched a lot of videos on them lol), but I don't really have time for fire management and long cooks :( I love the idea of cooking over wood too, sometimes I'll do sausages or something on the little firepit. Maybe when the kids are grown up I can get an offset.
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