This is why I have a hard time with hobbyist forums/communities. I get the idea of wanting to hone your end result or what have you, but it always seems to veer off into obsession while getting results which are debatably any better than keeping it simple.
I weigh my coffee/water to keep the brew ratio the same, and that is fine-tuned enough for me.
I read that as (19)30s documentary at first and was slightly confused until I clicked it! 😁
Spot on though! Especially about the made up lingo and the rituals to maximize his “throat velocity!”
Again, I won’t shame you if you do all that stuff and really enjoy it, but you should be self aware enough to know your level of fanaticism isn’t the norm.
obsession while getting results which are debatably any better than keeping it simple
It’s why I waited longer than I should’ve to shave with a safety razor. The wet shave or whatever communities had all these guidelines like you can’t shave against the grain, or you need to moisten your skin in 42º C water for exactly 37.6 minutes, or you need a hogbrush to apply horse oil infused soap. Failure to follow any of the rules would mean your skin turns into Leatherface permanently.
Turns out you can use a safety razor exactly like one from Schaunlickette, with the bonus being you can buy blades for life for the cost of a single pack of 27-blade razor heads, or however many they’re up to now
Got tired of paying high prices on razor blades, using disposables was wasteful, and the exponentially increasing number of blades wouldn’t get under my nose.
Switched to an old school Gillette Tech safety. Switched to Barbasol instead of the thicker stuff. Shaves better, cheaper, just as fast. No stupid rituals required. No shaving soap, mug, bristle brush or horseshit required. (I do recommend starting with one of the combo packs of razors to find the one you like).
I even shave my balls with it.
My son has his own tech, and has never tried any of the goofy ‘modern’ crap.
This was a solved problem nearly 100 years ago. Funny how marketing works.
The Tech is my favorite also! I have a couple handles, and the Tech may have been the last one because it seemed liked everyone was always calling it “too mild” or that our clogged too fast because the gap was too small.
It is the smoothest, most gentle, and least fussy handle I’ve got.
I had been so excited to get a Slim Adjustable, the most expensive of my collection, and that thing shreds me on any setting. 😮💨
The boar brush was nice when I shaved my whole beard, I liked the sensation, but it is fussy.
That is another great example. I bought a few used razors, but never spent more than $20.on any of them, and I bought a few blade sample packs and swapped a bunch for even more on a forum blade exchange so I probably had at least 40 kinds.
My beard grows every which way, so I shave whichever direction actually gets the hair off, and the blade differences are so miniscule. There were maybe 3 that tore me up for some reason, but the rest I probably couldn’t pick out blind.
So much hocus pocus there about something pretty dead simple. It is somewhat cute to see all the guys talking about soap scents and such, but one static article can easily cover all one ever needs to know about wet shaving.
Ignore all the chit chat and just enjoy cheap shaves.
I don’t have a problem with people who are willing to do things in a complex way or experiment around. But hobbies are often an excuse for consumerism and elitism and that’s kind of gross.
Like coffee is a great example: someone will talk about a $20 pour over or French press with pre ground coffee from a local roaster, which is a setup that will give you vastly superior coffee to most people and chain options like starbucks or dunkin. They’ll get roasted (lol) because they’re not grinding at home (at minimum $1-200 for a decent grinder). And then when you dive into those people you’ll see they have some wild ass setup with like an $8000 espresso machine, $3000 grinder, the $200 coffee scale that coffee nerds have a boner for because a $10-30 scale with almost the same exact feature set is lame and coffee nerds are just audiophiles in a different hat. They have that same desperation in trying to justify their excessive consumerism that has led to their kitchen counter holding a handful of appliances dedicated to a single task that have cost them the value of a very solid used car.
But like the person that double blind tests various preparation methods? That experiments with data recording to better understand what happens during various brewing methods? That tries unconventional approaches to extraction? That person is cool
Heck ya, some solid experimenting to me is way cooler than someone dropping massive cash on something. That’s kiiiinda interesting sometimes to see what’s new and experimental, but I’ll never spend that on it, so there’s limited use to me. But the fart sniffing stuff of overpriced scales and stuff like that, I can live without that type of content completely.
I weigh my coffee/water to keep the brew ratio the same
Yeah, I developed my current routine by weighing, but because I use literally the same containers every morning I can eyeball the amount of beans or water in those containers and know that I’m basically at the ratio I used to measure. Maybe tomorrow I’ll eyeball it, and then measure, to confirm I’m still calibrated at the right level.
I find some beans to be a bit denser than others, so I don’t try to guess that, but I can hit the desired water target range pretty easily by eyeball these days.
The hardest part of my setup was finding a grinder setting that works for 90+ percent of the coffee I enjoy. I order something new every time, so it gives me a good baseline, and if I want to tweak it, 2 clicks up or down gets me where I want without much fuss.
Lol musician forum are always great for that. There ends up being a lot of work to convince people to just buy this one more new thing and you will have the sound you have always dreamed of. This either leads to people selling their last gear purchase to either buy the same thing in a new package or to rebuy what they sold off to buy their current gear, but now at an inflated vintage gear price. Or you get everyone buying the same thing and now you sound like every other tone chaser in your quest to find originality.
That’s why I love cooking communities. A lot of things really do just boil down to technique, and a substantial amount of the equipment necessary is commodity grade where almost any brand performs the same.
Good point! Even if you make something and it doesn’t turn out in a way you like, you at least have an idea of how you can change what you did that time to get something more like what you do want.
This is why I have a hard time with hobbyist forums/communities. I get the idea of wanting to hone your end result or what have you, but it always seems to veer off into obsession while getting results which are debatably any better than keeping it simple.
I weigh my coffee/water to keep the brew ratio the same, and that is fine-tuned enough for me.
You will enjoy this 30s documentary.
I read that as (19)30s documentary at first and was slightly confused until I clicked it! 😁
Spot on though! Especially about the made up lingo and the rituals to maximize his “throat velocity!”
Again, I won’t shame you if you do all that stuff and really enjoy it, but you should be self aware enough to know your level of fanaticism isn’t the norm.
It’s why I waited longer than I should’ve to shave with a safety razor. The wet shave or whatever communities had all these guidelines like you can’t shave against the grain, or you need to moisten your skin in 42º C water for exactly 37.6 minutes, or you need a hogbrush to apply horse oil infused soap. Failure to follow any of the rules would mean your skin turns into Leatherface permanently.
Turns out you can use a safety razor exactly like one from Schaunlickette, with the bonus being you can buy blades for life for the cost of a single pack of 27-blade razor heads, or however many they’re up to now
Got tired of paying high prices on razor blades, using disposables was wasteful, and the exponentially increasing number of blades wouldn’t get under my nose.
Switched to an old school Gillette Tech safety. Switched to Barbasol instead of the thicker stuff. Shaves better, cheaper, just as fast. No stupid rituals required. No shaving soap, mug, bristle brush or horseshit required. (I do recommend starting with one of the combo packs of razors to find the one you like).
I even shave my balls with it.
My son has his own tech, and has never tried any of the goofy ‘modern’ crap.
This was a solved problem nearly 100 years ago. Funny how marketing works.
The Tech is my favorite also! I have a couple handles, and the Tech may have been the last one because it seemed liked everyone was always calling it “too mild” or that our clogged too fast because the gap was too small.
It is the smoothest, most gentle, and least fussy handle I’ve got.
I had been so excited to get a Slim Adjustable, the most expensive of my collection, and that thing shreds me on any setting. 😮💨
The boar brush was nice when I shaved my whole beard, I liked the sensation, but it is fussy.
That is another great example. I bought a few used razors, but never spent more than $20.on any of them, and I bought a few blade sample packs and swapped a bunch for even more on a forum blade exchange so I probably had at least 40 kinds.
My beard grows every which way, so I shave whichever direction actually gets the hair off, and the blade differences are so miniscule. There were maybe 3 that tore me up for some reason, but the rest I probably couldn’t pick out blind.
So much hocus pocus there about something pretty dead simple. It is somewhat cute to see all the guys talking about soap scents and such, but one static article can easily cover all one ever needs to know about wet shaving.
Ignore all the chit chat and just enjoy cheap shaves.
I don’t have a problem with people who are willing to do things in a complex way or experiment around. But hobbies are often an excuse for consumerism and elitism and that’s kind of gross.
Like coffee is a great example: someone will talk about a $20 pour over or French press with pre ground coffee from a local roaster, which is a setup that will give you vastly superior coffee to most people and chain options like starbucks or dunkin. They’ll get roasted (lol) because they’re not grinding at home (at minimum $1-200 for a decent grinder). And then when you dive into those people you’ll see they have some wild ass setup with like an $8000 espresso machine, $3000 grinder, the $200 coffee scale that coffee nerds have a boner for because a $10-30 scale with almost the same exact feature set is lame and coffee nerds are just audiophiles in a different hat. They have that same desperation in trying to justify their excessive consumerism that has led to their kitchen counter holding a handful of appliances dedicated to a single task that have cost them the value of a very solid used car.
But like the person that double blind tests various preparation methods? That experiments with data recording to better understand what happens during various brewing methods? That tries unconventional approaches to extraction? That person is cool
Heck ya, some solid experimenting to me is way cooler than someone dropping massive cash on something. That’s kiiiinda interesting sometimes to see what’s new and experimental, but I’ll never spend that on it, so there’s limited use to me. But the fart sniffing stuff of overpriced scales and stuff like that, I can live without that type of content completely.
Yeah, I developed my current routine by weighing, but because I use literally the same containers every morning I can eyeball the amount of beans or water in those containers and know that I’m basically at the ratio I used to measure. Maybe tomorrow I’ll eyeball it, and then measure, to confirm I’m still calibrated at the right level.
I find some beans to be a bit denser than others, so I don’t try to guess that, but I can hit the desired water target range pretty easily by eyeball these days.
The hardest part of my setup was finding a grinder setting that works for 90+ percent of the coffee I enjoy. I order something new every time, so it gives me a good baseline, and if I want to tweak it, 2 clicks up or down gets me where I want without much fuss.
I feel like that type of place is really prone to worship a particular brand/substituting any knowledge or skill for consumerism.
Lol musician forum are always great for that. There ends up being a lot of work to convince people to just buy this one more new thing and you will have the sound you have always dreamed of. This either leads to people selling their last gear purchase to either buy the same thing in a new package or to rebuy what they sold off to buy their current gear, but now at an inflated vintage gear price. Or you get everyone buying the same thing and now you sound like every other tone chaser in your quest to find originality.
That’s why I love cooking communities. A lot of things really do just boil down to technique, and a substantial amount of the equipment necessary is commodity grade where almost any brand performs the same.
Good point! Even if you make something and it doesn’t turn out in a way you like, you at least have an idea of how you can change what you did that time to get something more like what you do want.