I’m going to write this here for later versions of me to refer back to.
Using a WeMos mini D clone – how to get it working with micropython.
Flashing the thing is fairly straight forward using esptool – just remember that the tool is case sensitive – so – this means that you need to write COM4 rather than com4.
What else? THONNY is kinda useful as a simple ide.
My soldering is shitty.
Check the address of the i2c device. i2c.scan() returns a decimal – you need to convert it to hex. In my case I was getting errors like this:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “”, line 2, in
File “BME280.py”, line 153, in init
File “BME280.py”, line 159, in _load_calibration
File “BME280.py”, line 119, in readU16LE
File “BME280.py”, line 102, in readU16
OSError: [Errno 19] ENODEV
Kinda strange – indicates no device being detected. At first I thought it wasn’t soldered correctly. Then maybe pins were wrong but no….
The default address in the BME280.py file was 0x76. I needed 0x77.So I changed it in the library then finally found out that it doesn’t update the lib on the device. I will remember for next time.
What is good though is that because I could get a stack trace for the error – I could go into the lib and call the I2C stuff at low level – that was how I found out about the device was actually working and wired correctly, it just needed the correct address.
We’ve done the limoncello and that’s going nicely.
Vodka was on cheap at the store so we’ve stocked up on a few extra liters for just-in-case. I mean, it’s not as if it will go off. Right?
Oranges are starting to come down in price.
Alcohol and oranges? Hmmm – I wonder what could happen there?
So I went looking. Turns out there are a lot of different recipes for making “Orange liqueur” and some sounded better than others. On the basis that simplicity is often the best option – I decided to go with this one:
1l Jong Jenever (Dutch young gin – any grain based alcohol will do I guess but not vodka) at least 35%.
1 orange
40 coffee beans
40 raw sugar lumps
1.5l preserving jar with WIDE mouth.
I forgot to include the sugar in the picture but it’s needed:)
And what do you do with all that lot?
Scrub the orange under warm water, this removes the wax ans also makes it a little more pliant. Get a sharp knife and make holes in and around the orange and press the coffee beans into each hole (so that’s 40 holes right, probably at this point you may need to think about the size of orange you are using). Hint: make sure you go INTO the orange so you can access the juice.
When you’ve done that, put the orange in a large jar, add the sugar lumps and then cover with the gin.
Shake it a little to dissolve the sugar and thats it.
Leave this for 40 days:)
Put it in a dark place and leave for 40 days. Why 40? Probably because of the 40 beans?
After the 40 days – it’s ready. Filter the liqueur into a nice bottle (maybe give the orange a squeeze or just eat it?) and serve.
5 days ago, I spent the night with a bunch of oranges and lemons. Zesting, peeling, pithing, crushing etc. Today, i spent some more time with them. this is what it looked line:
The must after 5 days. This also included pectinase which helped break down the cells walls and release more juice.
As a reminder – I’m making the wine from this recipe:
I heated them up to just below 100 deg C (don’t want any bugs in there that shouldn’t be. I strained them to get all the bits out. I fed them 4 kg of sugar solution (found out the 1 kg of sugar in 1l of water increases the volume by just over 0.5l) and nearly drowned them with another 5l of liquid.
Straining the original must. It needed a bit of help to make it through the straining bag. This may cause it to go cloudy later on although the pectinase added at the start “should” prevent this.
And then we get to the magic part.
Giving them yeast and letting those little animals eat them and the sugar, pooping out CO2 and alcohol.
This part of the process is called “pitching”, where you pitch in your yeast…
In this case I made a “yeast starter”. So – got a bit of juice from the bucket, added some yeast starter nutrient, a bit of sugar and left it to cool a little (to lukewarm) . Shook it. Then added the yeast. Leave it for a little while till it starts to bubble (around 3 to 6 hours) and then thrown that directly into the orange and sugar mix.
Yeast starter. Sterilized jar used.
Put the lid on tightly. Insert the airlock and leave it. I did take a sample and measured the SG – it was pretty high (possibly too high) – >1120! Assuming the yeast holds out – it’s going to be pretty potent stuff at the end of it.
Shortly after, the air lock starts to bubble and you know them yeasts are doing what they should be.
They will carry on for a week or maybe more. At that point I’ll rack it from the bucket into glass demijohns and leave it to finish. This is what sometimes is called “the secondary”. You get an initial or “first” fermentation – so sort of fast and furious. Then it dies down and proceeds really slowly. This is where it’s a good idea to rack it off the lees and just leave it to do what it does – finish turning all the sugar into alcohol and then clear.
How long will that take? I honestly have no idea. I’m guessing 2 weeks for first and then maybe 2 to 3 months for secondary. After secondary – I may bottle if it’s clear or rack again and leave to clear before bottling.
Limoncello is great. Point out. As an aperitif, as dessert, as an anytime drink. Ice cold in a small glass. Wonderful.
But, shop bought is expensive and also not always that palatable. What to do?
Easy – make it yourself.
Doing just that though leaves you with a problem…
Waste!
You need only the lemon zest and not the whole fruit. Dilemma.
Or not really…
Be smart – use the lemon juice for lemon cordial. It’s not the harsh, acid drink you imagine. It’s rather smooth, tasting of lemon and great as a basis for mocktails (I know, I know).
Anyways – below are two recipes that make what they say.
As a side note – get 12 lemons. Scrub them and then zest them. Keep two of the lemons zest separate (perhaps a little more). Also, when you have the boiling water to soften the lemons (cordial), juice them and throw the skins in the boiling water. This makes it extra lemony. This doesn’t make much sense now. It will do when you’ve read the recipes. Honest.
For Limoncello…
(read the whole page – contains very useful information about alcohol strength):
So – you have a few batches of wine (or indeed, whatever) on the go. You wrote everything down in your book and now you go to your notebook and find out that one of the kids has used it for school. Disaster has struck…
No notes.
It’s not exactly the end of the world but it’s inconvenient at best.
Here’s an online idea for you that may help save some frustration and a few batches of wine.
The internet has many useful tools and services that you can take advantage of for free. Of these – I would like to introduce you to:
OneNote is a Microsoft program and may not be free – sort of depends on your license. EverNote is free for all, although you may be limited in the amount of records you store (but for our purposes – it will do fine).
Trello uses a “board” to store a number of Lists. Each list is made up of cards. A card can have various information with it (due date, photos, text etc).
If we use one board called say “Wine” and then make a list per batch of wine. We call a list after a batch of wine e.g. “strawberry”. We create a card for “Starting” and in the card we put a due date of the day started. I also put in a link to the recipe and some other stuff in there.
Then, when you rack the wine, you create another card called “rack” with a due date the day you rack. Continue with adding a card for each time you do something. A nice way to keep records. But, wait, there is more…
The “Due Date” field can be used to plan. Create a card for say “Bottling” and put a due date in the future – and you get the basis of a planning system as well. Nice. When you’ve done the job on the card – mark it as done (and make sure the date is the date you did it) – so you can have a good indicator of where you are.
How does that look in practice? A bit like this:
A Trello Board.
And this is what a card looks like:
A Trello card
Give Trello a go – it’s kinda cool. You can also share your boards with other people. This lets people work together for say maybe if you have a shared room or such and need to see where certain things are. (I don’t want to use the term “project management” but you get the idea).
This is all well and good but it’s not a real notebook – more of a scheduling tool. This is where we bring IFTTT (If This Then That) into play.
We can make it so that when you enter a new card – it adds to your online notebook. By connecting Trello to IFTTT and then into OneNote or EverNote then you can take your note taking to a new level.
First, make sure you have a OneNote available online. EverNote is always available online so it may be a little easier to deal with.
Then go to IFTTT and create an account. There are some good resources there that explain the next step – linking IFTTT to Trello and also to your OneNote/EverNote. When those two services are added – you need a recipe like the following to do the lifting of creating notes from cards:
Example IFTTT recipe.
When this recipe is run it will add a new page to your notebook. For me – this is OneNote and looks something like this:
OneNote in action.
This is just the start of where this can go. Using services like IFTTT, we can link numerous things together to get some useful and handy solutions in place.
Look there for instructions – there is a bit of preamble before you get to the nuts and bolts about half way down. Anyways – here’s my version. They main difference for what I’ve done (so far) is I added a bit of Pectolaze. This is an enzyme that breaks down pectin.
Why do this?
It turns out the oranges contain some of the highest pectin concentrations in the fruit world. It’s concentrated in the peel and pith. You don’t want those in the wine anyways as they leave a bitter taste so you remove those where you can.
Why don’t we want pectin?
Pectin is really useful if you want to make jam. It helps the jam set. But, if you want to make wine, then it can leave a cloudy presence in the finished product that makes clearing harder. Also, pectin is contained in the cell walls of the fruit and we want the juice out. So we can use pectinaze (it’s an enzyme) to help break down those walls and get the juice out.
What was a problem for me was that I don’t have any fine measuring scales (I’ve fixed this problem and ordered a set). So – adding a fine powder at 3g to 10l is not the easiest thing to do when you can weigh blocks of 10g. Long story short…
I added half a teaspoon. See how it goes.
The process?
Zest the fruit (remember to scrub the fruit first with warm water to remove any wax coating). Peel and remove what pith is possible (taking the pith?). Then cut up and mash the fruit together with the zest in a fermenting bucket. Add 6l of boiling water and mix. Important to have it boiling as this will kill and bugs that may have wandered in.
zest and fruit6l water added
Once the lot had cooled – I added the pectinaze and now have to leave it for 5 days.
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