Can you tell me more about Koji Alchemy? I do a lot of Japanese cooking, and I enjoy fermentation, pickling, sourdough, etc. This book sounds like it's be up my alley.
I also heard that store bought koji is generally subpar in quality. What does this book have to say about that?
Arch Linux + Sway
That really depends on your definition of "sane defaults." Even a lot of the computer science professionals I work with wouldn't consider Arch Linux defaults as sane. I picture sane defaults to include a lot more basic functionality that Arch doesn't have out of box (automatic suspend, desktop environment, lock screen, etc.).
I use Arch for the exact same reason you do though. Once you get past the tedious stuff like setting up your networking stack, setting up idle suspend, etc. it's nice to choose whatever WM/DE you want and customize it how you want.
Hopefully sway will eventually be able to support your setup!