So here I am. One month without having cable. The truth is…I don’t miss it. ESPN, The channel I thought I would miss the most has not even been on my radar. That may have something to do with football not being in season but time will tell. My Tivo is jammed packed with shows to watch. I have found myself needing Tivo days to catch up with all of my recordings and yes, I actually do enjoy watching the shows I’m recording/downloading. I wasn’t blogging when I decided to cancel my cable so I’ll give you a run down of my current setup.
TivoHD x 2 OTA turners for local channels
TivoHD for netflix streaming
TivoHD for video podcast
Netflix 2 at a time for blue ray movies
Xbox 360 streaming from my media center PC
Vista Media Center PC with 2 OTA tuners
Playon on Media Center PC for Hulu streaming
DB4 HDTV Antenna
VHF Antenna
Jointenna
Yes, all of those devices/subscriptions cost money but I already owned/paying for them. What I watch the most of OTA channels ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX, next is Netflix Blueray movies, then videopodcasts, finally all of the streaming. Granted I have spent more time with my hobby of home brewing lately but I can honestly say I don’t miss cable at all. I have to thank my friend Ben Drawbaugh for inspiring me to drop cable.
fmajowich Saving Money, Tech
One of the benefits of all grain brewing is reducing your ingredient price. However, one of the ingredients that I’m currently buying is water. Now that I going all grain I will be using more water. Previously I had been buying 6+ gallons of water for extract brewing. Since I will at least double my water consumption for all grain I made a decision to build a water filtration system. I did some googling and found it should be rather easy to build one. The system I planned on coping was one I found at BYO. I headed down to my local big box store with a parts list in hand. Once I arrived at the water filter section of the store the light went off in my head. I could just use a whole house system and save myself some time. I just needed some fittings to attach it to my garage sink, some tubing, and the water filter. This is what I ended up with.
1 x Whirlpool WHKF-DWHV Whole house water filter
2 x 1/2" Barb x 3/4" MIP Elbow
2 x 5/8" OD x 1/2" ID x 10'
1 x Quick Connect Sink Adapter
1 x Quick Connect to Hose Adapter Male 5/8"
1 x 1/2 Bard to 5/8 Female
I went with a more elaborate sink adapter which allows me to also connect a hose to my sink. I need this so I could connect my Therminator for wort chilling. You can modify the connection to your particular water source. When connecting all of the fitting make sure you use teflon tape to reduce the chance of any leaks. So far I’m happy how the filtration system turn out.
fmajowich Beer, Homebrewing
I acquired 3 kegs awhile back with the plan to convert them into an all grain home brew system. Since I don’t own a welder I decided to us weld-less fittings. Doing some googling I came across the Weld-B-Gone Deluxe+ Keg Conversion Kit from Zymico. The kit includes a Stainless Steel 1/2″ Barb, Ball Valve, and bulkhead fitting. I then found the BrewMometer from Blichmann Engineering to use as my temperature gauge. I decided to leave off the site glass to keep the costs down.However, I will probably add a sight glass down the road. I used a step drill bit to make the 7/8′ hole for the fittings. If you are drilling more than 1 keg I highly recommend getting drilling oil. That way your drill/drill bit with last longer. Once the holes were drilled assembled the weldless fitting into the appropriate holes. I then attached the Zymico Bazooka T in my boil kettle for a hop screen. Next I installed a 11″ Sanke Stainless Steel False Bottom into my Mash Tun. I had to use a hacksaw to shorten the tub from the False Bottom to fit correctly into the keg. Ultimately converting the kegs was a straight forward process. I believe anyone could convert keg given you have a drill,step drill bit and a hacksaw. Check out some pics of the converted kegs.
fmajowich Beer, Homebrewing
