July 2018 – samfirke.com

I first created Zingibier, a “grand cru” style spiced Belgian ale, in 2010. With beginner’s luck, it won a gold medal in the 2010 National Homebrew Competition, and the recipe is featured on the American Homebrew Association’s website.

The beer is tough to categorize. It’s a strong (~8%) wheat beer that uses a Belgian Witbier yeast and spices typically associated with the Witbier style: coriander, bitter orange peel, and chamomile. It also packs a prominent ginger note, with the ginger sufficiently cooked as to not contribute heat.

This was my 6th time brewing the beer. The recipe was on Brewtoad (now defunct) and embedded as BeerXML (now not displaying). Luckily I grabbed a PDF copy before Brewtoad shutdown, though.

Improvising an AC/DC wall wart adapter

Yesterday I had a nice maker win that felt like validation for time spent building confidence in the basics of electronics.

The problem

The situation was dire. The Medela Pump-In-Style breast pump was needed immediately. We found the old pump but couldn’t locate its battery pack or AC/DC adapter. It was late and local stores were closed.

The hack

On Amazon.com I found the specs for a replacement Medela adapter: output 9V, 1000 mA. Rummaging in my to-be-recycled electronics pile, I found a 9v 1000mA power adapter from an electric pencil sharpener I’d used as a high school teacher. But its prong was too small for the Medela.

More rummaging turned up an adapter prong that did fit, this from the power adapter to an old Asus RT-N16 router (12V, 1.25 amps). I cut each adapter’s cord in half, stripped the wires, attached them with crimp-on butt end splices – noting that the positive wire on each pair was marked with stripes – and voila! The pump worked and saved the day.