monocles

Brewing is cool no matter how you do it. Don't take anyone dissing on you because you don't use all grain seriously. A two row can of extract can give the same base as mashing and lautering out the extract yourself from all grain.

Using extracts is not a hindrance, because you can use extract to create the base of the beer. If you want to do a multi-stage rest, you can do that with a tea bag of grain. Grab yourself a large mesh bag (they are not expensive) and you can do a whole lot with various grain without having to do the lautering process.

Get whatever specialty grain and place it in the mesh bag and then as you are mashing, you can hold the temperature at certain points. Conversion temperatures in the 140s 150s and 160s all have radically different taste profiles depending on the length of time and the grain. It's all about time and temperature.

You can get all sorts of interesting notes just from the grain- cloves, a honey sweetness, chocolate, etc. Especially if you're mixing in any grains like chocolate malt, black prince, or something with more floral notes. In my opinion, this is some of the most fun part of brewing.

But you can still do a lot without using any grain and just extract. I personally have used unsweetened cherry juice and quite a few of my brews. Knudsens is a brand that I use. I generally add it around when I add the finishing hops - at the end of boil around knockout.
I experimented with unsweetened cranberry juice in a ginger ale, using champagne yeast. It was a bit astringent, but was still very palatable and gosh very strong.

If you are into sour beers, look into kettle souring. It's also a really cool process. But it's kind of a time commitment.

And a whole lot can depend on hop. Citra, Galaxy, Palisade, Clementine, etc will result in radically different taste profiles, when used as a finishing hop.

And you can split your cans of extract up, you don't have to make a 5 gallon carboy of beer every time. A little gallon fermenter with a vapor lock is cheap, and you can do neat stuff that is not a big monetary commitment.

Thanks for posting. Have fun.

But gratification is ultimately just a series of chemical reactions. So you're saying to merely dig into the chemicals?

No. I mean I guess you could see it that way, and you could even do that, whether those chemicals be internal or external. But I think that's oversimplifying. The satisfaction and gratification come from knowing. Knowing that what you are doing right now is something that you want to be doing. Not want in the I want a sandwich sort of way. Want in the I want what I'm doing now to be the thing that gives my experience a more complete and deep meaning sort of way.

I would quote here but it seems pedantic.

You speak of chemicals and hormones evoking emotions (sympathy was your word) based on some arbitrary morals that don't exist. And I don't think you're wrong. But I think in this case you're not oversimplifying you're overcomplicating. Erm. Let me see if I can elucidate. I'm thinking this through right now so let me see if I can get it right..

Think of yourself as an ant. On a very big round hill with a whole bunch of other ants. You are Flagstaff the ant. You are part of a colony. I am monocle the ant. And we are discussing this in some sort of bizarre moderated telepathy that we call words. I think some things, you think some things, and these things that we think of are all controlled by our hormones and chemicals. Pathways of how we think are familiar routes for those neurons that fire. That's how we have been conditioned to be who we are.

We make decisions based on that. Our identities are based on that. What make us up are our experiences. And what we decide to do with those experiences. Just like every previous experience from every entity that we have ever come in contact with. So it's like we couldn't have ended up anywhere else because that's what we have decided to do. This conversation is what we've decided to do. This is the question of free will.

So if you zoom way out, I mean like way way out, all you see is the colony. Like Flagstaff and monocle don't really exist, except that we do. You don't give names to ants. It's just ants. You look at an ant colony, and you think there's ants. Yet all the ants are communicating in a somewhat similar fashion as to what we are.

Is it pointless? What the ants do? What we do? Maybe. But there is some amount of meaning in the question that you asked. Or at least we hope there is. Otherwise I wouldn't be here answering it, and you wouldn't be replying to my answer, and I wouldn't be replying to your counterpoint.

Being good to yourself and others. Whatever that is and whatever chemicals that it produces, cause and effect and all that. We don't need a higher power for that. We are the higher power, we are the colony.

Well that sounds really hokey and like a bunch of metaphysical horse crap. But I've re-edited this thing like 10 times and I have work in the morning at my factory job. So I have to let it go for now. Hope that helps.

From an uncertain genesis to a certain end. You do not remember being born, but you know someday that you will die. This is awareness. And there is some comfort in this.

In the past you have remembrance or memory. The things that you were or the things that happened to you. In the future you anticipate what could come, or what your hopes are. You make plans. And that's fine. It's part of the human condition. But the now is the only thing that is actually happening.

Seize this moment. This moment is where you are. This moment is where you live. Being kind to yourself, being kind to others, being a person that others would wish to be, if they were examining your present person.

To build the world, or at least your small part of it, in the way that you see fit is all that our tiny hands can do. And there is a certain satisfaction in that. To live moment to moment. And to build your station. And to build others stations around you. To empower yourself and others. These are the things that build satisfaction. Gratification. These things are real. And these things do not require anything of the past or future.

Eventually you can stretch this now into the whole of your life. And it will provide wholeness that is not dictated by any sort of belief. For belief is not necessary. Let me repeat. You do not need to believe in anything to have wholeness and fulfillment in your life. But it certainly helps to be kind to others for its own sake. For that is the rule that others will measure you on as well.

I hope that helps.

PS. If you dig on this kind of thing, look into stoicism.

Get to know your neighbors.

The network is one of the most important parts of a survival scenario.

Personally, I have met people through food not bombs that I found interesting and dedicated to a better future.

Dried beans and rice go a long way towards feeding yourself and family if food becomes a scarcity. Store in airtight containers, with an inert gas, so that what you do have does not become rancid.

A human can survive for weeks without food but only days without water. If you're stockpiling.

Become proficient with firearms. This involves practice, and ownership.

It is almost always better to hunker down than to bug out.