2012-05 Sauerkraut

I had a go at Sauerkraut last year.
Not too good a result. I think I used too much salt and so the fermentation didn't happen very well. Cabbages are 90 cents a head right now and I've kept my eyes out for a good vessel for 'krauting and found a candidate a month back so lets do this properly this time:

Parts:
Cabbage.
Salt.
(some call for juniper berries but I have none)

Tools:
Kraut Crock.
Good knife and chopping board.
Tea towel.

The crock I found for $1 at an op-shop. I looks like the inner bowl of a dead slow cooker. It's perfect: Parallel sides so it's easy to pack and weight down without letting light and air in and wide enough to easily pack the cabbage in. I'd like it to be taller then I could do more kraut at the same time.
I have an enamel pot that is a close fit inside and I'll fill with water for a weighted lid. That's it in the photo inside the crock.

Now chop the cabbage.

First discard and dark green outer leaves. I cut out a wedge and then finely chopped that.
You can not chop too fine but it must not be pulped or the kraut will be mush.

Put the sliced cabbage in the crock to depth of about 10cm.

Salt lightly. I used about the amount of salt I'd use salting a tray of oven roasted vege' and spuds.

Pack the layer down. Really hard. I leant down on my fist around the edges and then packed in the middle. It gets crushed and stays down if its done well.

Chop more cabbage and pack in another layer salting before packing as you go.

before packing

after packing

I just got the whole cabbage in so maybe the crock is a good size.


By the time I was finished it was starting to get damp. This is the idea: the salt draws out the cabbage juice and it ferments in it so the damp is a good thing.

Now put on the lid and press it down. You should get cabbage juice rise to the brim of the crock.


Leave this somewhere handy for the first day and each time you pass it press the weighted lid down.


After that put it somewhere cool and cover it with the tea towel. I put it on a

plate too to catch any cabbage juice overflow: The cabbage will pack down as it ferments and becomes tender and the weighted lid might push out the juice.


Check it after a week or so and remove any bloom.


In two weeks it should be done.


It does not need to be washed before cooking. I put it in a pot with sliced green apple, some bay leaves and pork spare ribs and simmer for 1 hour then eat with boiled buttered spuds.

2012-04 Music and Video

I really need to finish a piece of music.

I had a general idea and planned to keep it simple; Some autoharp mic'd up close so all the key bridge noises and fingers on the strings and creaks etc. would be picked up then add some short wave radio noise and some tabla.

Setup the mic's. Do a sound check with the electric guitar first. Like the sound. Try some delay effects. Like that. Add some more. Sounding quite good and a sequence of notes comes together quite well. Do a take. Sounds good. Add effects. Yum.

Now the video.

I wanted this to be about Autumn. Dig out photos of Autumn of Daniel's farm and some dead tree and park photos. Get the TV23 image scripts out and generate some scenes with them. Fire up a video editor and mix the stylistically best fitting ones together to the right length and add the sound.

Quite nice really.

Upload to Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=A6Fl3EMZd2U

2012-03 Refurbish Autoharp

A friend gave me an Autoharp that needed some love after a few years in the garage.

Stripped down the key bridges and cleaned the gunk. The felt pads look good. The springs seem fine too. Cleaned what I could of the sound board while there and removed the remains of the broken strings.

Reassembled.

Got old guitar strings and fitted them where the weights seemed close. Pulling out the little brass plug from the end of the string left a loop of wire that fits well over the ping that secures the end of the string in the Autoharp.

No Key. The local music shop had them and luckily there's no fitting problem. Was $15 or so and they had them in stock.

The quartz digital tuner I use for guitar tuning has the range and made tuning a long (32 strings ) but easy enough process.

The chords sound very weird; re-tune. Still weird. Look at photos of instrument; Aha: I have the key bars on up-side down. You don't play it on your lap like a dulcimer but on your chest like a super stumpy guitar. Change the key bars.

Beautiful.

2012-02 Digitise Video tapes

I've had a few goes at this. always a bit half-hearted but I'd like to get rid of the tapes lying around and I have a gruntier system then when I last tried so I'll give it another shot.

# ***** Done: *****
# size is good.
# deinterlace is acceptable.
# cropping - could be better.
# Selects the correct video input (instead of the TV tuner) Check the size and rate settings.
# output to file. - works without fram dropping on video only - test with audio.
# audio capture. - need to set the capture channel via alsalmixer.
# sync to keep sound in sync - no noticable drift in 10 min tests
# A format better: 10min = 270meg. Try audio compression too ? Great - tiny now.
# Cropping top and bottom looks a bit out too. - Better, good enough for now.
# ***** Needs: *****
# nothing really - some good long tests.
# find out why the grab is sometimes textured and a restart fixes it.
mencoder -tv driver=v4l2:input=3:alsa:adevice=default:width=768:height=576 -vf pp=lb,crop=768:560 tv:// -oac mp3lame -lameopts preset=medium -ovc x264 -x264encopts pass=1 qp=40 -o deathrace2000.avi

# Result:
# Works very well indeed with 927M for a full length video that looks as good as the original and can be viewed close to real time with mplayer so you can record as you watch.
# Outstanding issue:
# find out why the grab is sometimes oddly textured and a restart fixes it.
# Workaround:
# Check recording with mplayer after a few seconds. Restart if not right.

mencoder -tv driver=v4l2:input=3:alsa:adevice=default:width=768:height=576 -vf pp=lb,crop=768:560 tv:// -oac mp3lame -lameopts preset=medium -ovc x264 -x264encopts pass=1 qp=40 -o deathrace2000.avi

# Trim and crop:
# ***** Needs: *****
# Needs to be sped up
# Needs to preseve quality.
# ***** Done: *****
# Start time: -ss hh:mm:ss.xx
# End time: - t seconds or hh:mm:ss.xx
# Crop: -vf crop=width:height:x:y
# the -vcodec copy overrides any -vf - fix quality: Use another codec.

ffmpeg -i deathrace2000.avi -ss 00:00:50.00 -t 20 -vcodec libx264 -vf "crop=656:560:54:0" dr2000-02.avi

That's all a bit sucky: Just trim instead and use the player to crop if needed. So I can just go:

ffmpeg -i deathrace2000.avi -ss 00:00:50.00 -t 20 -vcodec copy dr2000-02.avi

Which is blindingly fast and preserves quality.

2012-01 Low Noise Phono System

I've always had a little hum on the record player. So low though that even quiet music obscures it.
However it is there and I recently got a copy of Tibetan Bells. TB is very quiet indeed, with long passages where a single bell note fades completely before the next is struck.

[1] Check the amp.
[2] Check the cables.
[3] Check the record player.

Amp:
Found the Tuner input on the amp, which I had been using had some hum. Checked them all: The Tape input is quietest by far.

Cables:
OK.

Record player:
Both check out fine.



OK, the pre-amp in the amp is noisy so I got a general preamp kit from jcar (http://www.jaycar.co.nz/productView.asp?ID=KC5159) to try. Cheap enough to discard if not good enough.
It sounds great. Housed it in an old power supply case and it goes directly to a spare input on the PC sound card.
I can easily hear the original tape noise kick in as the cutting engineer switches it in when mastering the LP on Tibetan Bells so the total noise in the system here is less then in the original studio (1970's analog) and there's no discernible hum at all. An added advantage here is there is no need to use any mechanical switches any more. I just use alsa mixer to directly control the sound-card input level and switch between inputs on the sound card.

Here's a photo of the finished pre-amp disguised as a pedestal.