Yes, I finally opened a bottle of my Edwort’s Apfelwein and took a real sample. For all that is worth, the taste was pretty okay and considering that it has only been in the bottle for 1 week, I am sure that it will get better. And the carbonation was a bit too little. I am rather surprised to find the Apfelwein has too little carbonation, felt like it was a still wine. The PET bottle I use to contain the Apfelwein was rather firm when I pressed on it but alas, there will still very little carbonation. And the bubbles that were formed will quickly disappear. I believe that it is because unlike beer, apple cider doesn’t retain bubbles since it has very little body just like sparkling apple juice!

For the taste, I have to say it is like between a cider and a plum wine. You can definitely feel the sourish aftertaste at the back of your tongue when you drink it and there will always be a slight bitterness at the edge. Not too sure how to put it correctly, but it is like after eating something sour and at the end of it you bite the seed (which is usually bitter) like of feeling. Not very sure whether I like it. But from what more experienced had said, you will need to drink about 3 glasses or more before you can pass any judgement on this Apfelwein. But I really doubt that I have the ability to drink 3 glasses straight! Probably get drunk before the second glass. And not to mention, a massive headache the next day. Wuhahaha, don’t you just hate to have that intense headache when you wake up in the morning. Seems that apple ciders will provide a lot of impurities which will cause those hangovers.

Well, please enjoy the following pictures:

Yes, you can see a little carbonation. But that’s about it. And when you drink the cider, you don’t feel the fizziness at all. This pictures was taken just moments after I pour the Apfelwein onto the glass and there is just a few little bubbles left.

Another view of the Apfelwein. The colour is actually quite nice. You can’t really see it from this picture but the colour is beautifully golden. By the time I took this picture, there is hardly any carbonation left.

Yet another view.

I am not too sure of what to make of this. I will probably keep this aged for about a few more weeks and then crack open a bottle and have yet another test of the wine. Yes, I am sure it will get better with age. Hopefully.

So I guess some of you guys will going to the F1 Show held at the Marina area from 26th to 28th of September right? It is ironic that in Singapore where the land is scarce and the entire island overcrowded, Singaporeans love their cars and they love racing. You know, people go ga-ga over some uber expensive car with some huge spoiler which nobody in their right mind will be willing to drive it on the roads of Singapore. I mean yes, it does look good and cool but what’s the point?I guess if more you can’t have it, the more appealing it will be. It is no wonder Singapore has so many cars on the roads.

And don’t you think it is weird that Singapore is holding a racing show? Come on, Singapore is so small and overcrowded. Plus it is so warm. I won’t want to be sitting in the hot sun sweating with thousands of others waiting for a vehicle to come round the track once every 15 minutes which I will then glimpse for about 10 seconds before it disappears around the other corner . Of course, the race in Singapore is held at night but that’s not the point. The point is that it is causing a lot of problems in Singapore, especially for those working in the area. Just imagine traffic jams, road closures, road diversions, blocked pathways, constructions, inconveniences and so on.  Sure, it brings in the money and tourists but in my opinion, the cost outweighs the benefits.

Anyway, before I go off track and start talking about something else, I think I will head back to the main topic, which is tips for going to the Singapore F1 show.  So if you are going to the F1 show, I would recommend you guys to do the followin:

1. Take the public transport! Seriously, the traffic is going to be extremely congestion during the F1 period. You will bound to be caught in a jam whether you are going into the Marina Area or when you are leaving.
2. Water bottles (with water). Even in the evening or at night, the weather is still rather warm in Singapore. And with the crowd and the excitement, you will bound to feel the heat, so make sure you have enough water to drink.
3. Don’t bring your kids to the F1. I have seen idiots bringing their toddlers and babies to IT shows before. Those fools push their prams in such an overcrowded condition and thus creates even more chaos and human congestion. If you do that at the F1 Show, you are the ultimate idiot and someone should run you down.
4.  If you are driving, you will need a special pass to enter the restricted zone at the Marina area. If you don’t have the special pass, you will not be allowed to enter those areas. So if you are driving but you don’t have the special pass, please park somewhere else and take the free bridging service to your designated “screaming” gallery. Even if you have the special pass, just think of the traffic condition at the Marina area and then be smart and park somewhere else as well.
5. Come early. Even if you take the public transport, there will always be someone blocking your path. There are a lot of sissy walkers in Singapore who can’t walk normally. If you are driving, parking is going to be  a very serious problem for you. So, try and come early to the show. Imagine the congestion if everyone comes at 7pm!
6. If you are driving, please drive carefully. Singaporeans are a very impatient lot. So when it comes to jams and traffic lights, Singaporeans can’t wait and they get pissed and angry. However, it is ironic that Singaporeans are more than willing to queue for silly Hello Kitty dolls and first edition cash cards.
7. Plan! Where are your seats located? Which gallery? Where are the nearest carpark? How do are you going to get there.
8. Sleep early the previous night. Obvious why.
9. Bring binoculars. Don’t expect to be so close to the action. Most of the galleries are located rather far from the track so you won’t be seeing much if you don’t have a binoculars.
10. Have fun! Not sure how they do it, but I am sure that most of the crazies attending the F1 show will enjoy themselves. Crazy people.

Well, these are the tips have I for those going to the Singapore F1 show. Good luck and bring some ear plugs to the show. For more information on road closures and diversions, please refer to LTA’s website.

For my next brew, I am seriously thinking about making some Mexican Cerveza. One thing I heard about Mexican Cerveza is that it is a beer/lager especially made for sunny weather. We all know how Mexico is right? I mean from the movies. Most of us have never been in Mexico. We see that Mexico is some sort of a warm, dusty country with a lot of bars and people with big mustaches who can’t really speak English. And if it works for Mexicans, it should work for Singaporeans, for in Singapore, it is just like Mexico. The people here can’t speak a word of proper English and it is warm and dusty. So what better than to cool down after a hard day’s work by drinking some nice refreshing Cerveza eh? As I said before, life is great if you make it great.

So I guess I will be ordering the Cooper’s Mexican Cerveza kit these few days. I will be doing this yet another for a friend. He wasn’t really too particular with what he and his friend is drinking but I guess first impressions last, so I think I will be a bit more conservatives. For this Cerveza brew, I will be getting the 1.7kg Cooper’s Mexican Cerveza beer goo and the 1kg Cooper’s Beer Enhancer 2. That’s what Cooper’s recommend and that’s what I will be getting. Surely if the recipe is recommended by Cooper’s, we won’t go wrong there. But I am guessing that there will definitely be ways to improve on the pretty simple recipe. Maybe I will be adding some hops to it as well. Some people recommend Cascade hops which is a bit fruity and just right for a Mexian Cerveza. Well, I might be trying that just for the fun of it.

If you guys remember, one of my previous beers I made was the Australian Pale Ale. And after conditioning it for about 1 month or so, I will be sending it for a taste test at my friends’ bbq lunch. Hopefully, everyone will leave with some great impression about home brewed beer. Those two batches had some pretty strong alcohol in it but that could be a problem. A lot of them are driving and I am rather worried. So the best thing to do is to bring about just 3 bottles of beer instead. That should limit the amount of alcohol consumed to a safe level for people to drive home.

Looks like got another ulcer. And yet another, this is a huge mother of an ulcer. I think the correct term is mother of all ulcers. Big, greenish, nasty and angry looking and it looks like it may even explode at any moment! And, god awful painful.  One thing about ulcers is that they tend to grow at places like at the ends of your lips where it is very painful every time you move your lips.  You may often wonder why does it grow in such places. Well, if you know the answer, please give me a heads up. I have been trying to figure that one out for the longest time.

Anyway, I am treating this ulcers with plum juice. Yes, you heard me correctly, plum juice. You can of course use salt and gently put the salt on your ulcers but salt are coarse and may instead injure and worsen the ulcers. All you have to do if you use plum juice is to add a few drops to a cotton bud and then apply it on your ulcers. Yes, it will be painful. But after a wait, you will see the effects of less swelling and reduce pain. However, you will need to apply pretty often for it to be effective. I have heard of others using water melon frost (the white stuff just after the skin of the watermelon) to treat the ulcers. But a few years back, there was a poison scare involving some China manufacturer who made water melon frost and that got a lot of people worried. So, I guess it will take a lot more to gain my confidence in using back water melon frost.I have to admit though, it is pretty effective as well. All you need to do is to apply a little water melon frost (it looks kind of like a greenish powder) and wait till it heals. Yes, it taste rather bitter and your teeth may have that greenish stain but all that matters is that it works, right?

Well, I am sure that my ulcers will disappear in a few days time. That’s usually how long these ulcers last.Next time, whenever I get a little cut or a bleed on my lips, I will have to really take care of the little cut/wound on my lip and make sure that it doesn’t get infected. I believe that my ulcers were caused by my nephew who had recently scratch my mouth. If you know of any effective method of healing mouth ulcers, please post a reply in the blog. I am very keen to hear from you.

Well, I just bottled my Apfelwein yesterday morning. It has been in the fermenter for about 3 weeks already. Yes, I had said that I wanted it to ferment for 4 weeks but due to the fact that next week I will most probably be very busy, I decided to bottle it yesterday. I must say, it was definitely fun. This is the first time I ever done a Apple cider (or Apple Wine) so I was not very sure about all the steps in bottling. But luckily, it was pretty smooth, except the problem with several of the clear bottles which couldn’t be easily capped with the capper I had bought.

I had bottled most of them in the PET bottles (just like for beer) and several in clear 330ml bottles as well as a few in wine bottles. The ones I bottled in the wine bottles will not be carbonated as the wine bottles cannot handle carbonation. All the rest will be fizzy, just like I like it. Yes, I will have to age them for a few more months before I can drink them. When I tasted a sample, the flavour is a bit too harsh, probably because of the high alcohol content in the wine. And it didn’t have the apple flavour I had expected it to have. Worse of all, I did find some buttery aftertaste which is a bit of a turn off. I was warned in the beer brewing about this buttery taste due to the Cote des Blancs yeast, but there wer some in the forum who said that the yeast can produce a very smooth wine. Perhaps they were talking about a few months down the road?

Anyway, I have taken a few photos of the bottled Apfelwein and you can take a look at them below

That’s the Apfelwein in clear glass bottles. Too bad, my capper cannot work for some of these bottles.

That’s two bottles of Apfelwein in glass bottles. The red stuff with handles is the corker used to cork the wine bottles. Basically what you have to do is the put the wooden cork in the “squeezer” and then squeeze it by pushing the two handles together till the cork is small enough. Then you place the corker on the glass bottle and push the handle down to “insert” the cork into the wine bottles. Takes a lot of strength and some good balancing skill but it is doable. Hehehe, if I can do it, most of you sure could. I am skinny and weak remember?

Another view of the Apfelwein in green glass bottles. Well, I am patient enough to leave these Apfelweins alone for a few months and forget about them.Then I will go and have a taste again. Hopefully it will turn out drinkable. I really hate to waste so much of my effort, time and money to make this Apfelwein and nobody is willing to drink them. Let’s keep our fingers cross.

Have you heard of this drink before? I only recently heard of this drink from my local brewing forum. It seems that it is very very popular in Malaysia. People are willing to pay hundreds of dollars for 1 litre of such stuff. I mean, if they are not willing to spend hundreds of dollars on alcohol, but they are willing to pay that amount for some concentrated fruit juice, there must be something great about it. First of all, I am not sure what to make of this drink. Is it sort of a health drink? Or is it just another term for wine/mead? I have been reading up a on this subject on a number of websites, and most of which never mention anything about alcohol being produced. Either it is true and only enzymes are extracted and there is no alcohol, or this enzymes drink is actually wine or mead at the early stages. It is my opinion is that there should be alcohol in the drink.

These are the basic steps to make Enzymes drinks:-

1. Thoroughly clean utensils and glass container (must have a tight seal)
2. Ensure that the utensils are all dry and clean
3. Peel and cut fruits into slices (commonly used fruits include Papaya, Dragonfruit, Pineapple and apple)
4. Peel and cut lemon into slices
5. Place one layer of sliced fruits and lemon in the glass container and add raw brown sugar
6. Continue to add layers of sliced fruits and lemon with the brown sugar till the container is full
7. Seal the glass container and keep it in a cool, dark place for 3 days
8. Open up the container to let air escape
9. Stir the container
10. Let it rest in the container for 2 more weeks (however open up the container regularly to let air escape)
11. After the 2 weeks are up, strain the liquid and store in an airtight container

And there you have it. Enzymes drink. I think the process is like extracting the liquid of the fruits due to the high concentration of the sugar and this draws out the enzymes from the fruits. However, it seems that everyone is forgetting that there are always wild yeast present in the environment. Especially there are wild yeast present in the skins of fruits, some of which will be transfered when cutting the fruits. So the yeast will definitely consume the sugars and this will produce alcohol. Yes, the time period is short and the amount of yeast will probably be rather small but since there should be some sort of fermentation going now. So, don’t be surprised to find that this enzymes drink taste like wine!

Anyway, for my next brew, I may be making some enzymes drinks. Well, I would like to take care of my health and these few days I have been feeling a little down. Perhaps it is due to work or stress, but somehow I feel extremely tired everyday. Even blogging doesn’t perk me up anymore.

Yes, you can find them in nearly every coffee shop nowadays. I have been drinking this since I was very young. It seems to be getting more and more popular with the common folk like me and you, which in my opinion is a good thing. I mean it’s just good. Plain and simple. Of course, the apple flavour isn’t that strong like before, but it is still there. And it’s not too sweet but sweet enough for most people. One thing I have found with most Apple juice based beverage is that they are just too damn sweet. I really hate drinks that are over the top sweet. Perhaps those were meant for young kids, but even young kids won’t be drinking such sweet drinks everytime, they will get sick pretty fast.

Sure it has artifical colouring and preservatives but it claims to have natural apple flavourings. I am not too sure what that means, but I think it could be that it is based on Apple concentrates being diluted with carbonated water. And of course, it is watered down kind of apple “flavouring” but what do you expect from such a cheap drink? At least there isn’t any off taste in the drink. And it is carbonated! Which makes it great for a refreshing afternoon drink. It is light, refreshing, clean tasting and doesn’t have any aftertaste. Just right. Smell wise, not much Apple aroma. I mean once you open the bottle, you will definitely get an “appley” smell but after a while, it is gone. Even placing the glass next to my nose, I can’t smell much of the Apple odour. Looks wise, I think it is quite acceptable. Light golden colour, the colour Apple juice should be. Anyway, this has artifical colouring it in, so I guess it doesn’t really count. Anyway, it is cheap. You can purchase one bottle for 55 cents at Sheng Siong.

The China brand sparkling apple flavoured beverage in all it’s glory. Yes, that’s a picture of an apple on the right. Not a cherry.

Check out the ingredients. They have sugar added to it.

If you have not tried this drink before, I would seriously recommend you to have a taste. Extremely good as your lunch time drink too and take a break from your usual coke or pepsi.

Well, I guess it is time for me to get a brand new PC. No, I am not going for a super high end setup but just a budget one. No point for me to get such a high end PC when I don’t (or seldom) play games anymore and I merely use my PC to do work and watch some movies and the occasional game. Of course, I will need it to be slightly more powerful than my last rig because my last rig was just too slow. Can’t help it as it was just a Pentium IV 2.5GHz and it was about 5 years old. I couldn’t believe that this system lasted me so long. You know me, I was usually the kind of person who would want to get the fastest PC available. But as I get older and poorer, I realize that all this racing is pointless and actually quite stupid. It’s just a waste of money. Sure it is a hobby, however you don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars every month just to change parts for your PC. If you do that,then it is not a hobby but an obsession which you may never get rid off.

I am thinking of getting an AMD set for myself. It should be using the Palit N68S mainboard with a AMD 64×2 5000 processor and 2GB of DDR3 RAM. I never realize that RAM prices have dropped so much in recent months. I remembered paying about S$80 for a 512MB piece of RAM. Now the two pieces of 1GB RAM should cost about S$58. Yes, it is whoopingly cheap! Not planning to get another graphics card (since I am not into games anymore) but just a 500GB HDD to store my data. Of course, the spolit HDD of my previous PC will be sent for RMA. That Seagate HDD’s warranty is for 5 years so I am still in luck. It expires in 2011. Anyways, the budget AMD system should set me back about 550 bucks. Comes with a pretty good PSU and a very nice casing (12cm fan as well). Why not? The price is reasonable, the specification is great and I am happy.

I will be taking a few pictures of my new setup. And tomorrow, hopefully I will be posting another blog post from my new PC. Cheers everyone! Wish me luck.

Yes, this is one of my favourite non-alcoholic beverages. And no, I am not paid by Allswell to say good things about them. I don’t do paid reviews. But of course, if you would like to send me some stuff to review, by all means go head and send them to me and I will do my best to review it. The problem is that I will always give an honest review and there may be some negative reviews on certain products. But as you can see, the drink I am reviewing today I had purchased myself and again, this is an honest and truthful review.

I guess the reason why I like this starfruit drink is that it taste rather “salty” but unlike other starfruit drinks I had tasted, it is not too overpowering. I have tasted starfruit drinks which are so salty that I could swear I was drinking sea water. The sourish flavour is there but you can still taste the starfruit “twang” at the end. Well, yes, it is a bit too sweet but in all seriously, nowadays I doubt you can feel any soft drink which isn’t too sweet. This is best served cold - ice cold. You will love it immediately even if you are not a starfruit fan. Don’t get me wrong, I like starfruit. But I am not that crazy about starfruit. And that alone speaks volumes about how great this drink is. And when you drink it, you can’t stop. The reason is that it just feels great when the cold drink flows down your throat - very refreshing on a warm afternoon. In sunny Singapore, you can’t go wrong with this.

As you can see from the wordings on the label, there is no colouring or preservatives! Another plus for anyone who likes to keep the stuff they eat natural. The packaging itself isn’t that tempting I have to admit. But hey, we are drinking it not staring at it right? I heard that if you have a dry throat or no voice, this Starfruit drink works wonders. Seems that a lot of people swear by it.

Again, the colouring isn’t all that appealing as well. But yet again, I have to say that we are drinking it and not staring at it. Remember, this drink doesn’t have any artifical colouring, so this is in fact the actual colour of starfruit juice. Don’t you just love my mug? It has been stained, knocked around, chipped and man-handled but I am still using it. And don’t you just love being sentimental? I must be getting old.

You can find Allswell’s Starfruit drink at most supermarkets and convenience stores in Singapore. Even some coffee shops and hawker centers sell them to their customers. I bought mine for about S$1.00 at 7-Eleven. If you can’t find it, you may be living in Nigeria or Ethiopia or perhaps even Mars.

The horrors of all horrors! My HDD just died on me! And I didn’t backup recently. All my mails, all my documents, all my information, all my porn, all my life has been eliminated by the death of the HDD. I feel like someone has just taken an axe and had chopped off my puny head. I don’t know what to do now. Seriously, I am very confused and I feel very hopeless. Don’t you just hate it when all your data is just gone like that without any warning? I had expected the HDD to at least give some symptons of it dying before it really go bonkers. But alas, it didn’t. Sad. Very sad. And with that, all my data is gone from history. That is over 8 years of data I had on my PC.

I am trying my best to recover any data on that HDD. Although I can see the drive in Window but I can’t access it. And when I click on the drive, it will respond very slowly, causing the entire PC to slow down and making it unusable. So everytime I do it, I had to wait for 15 minutes and I was then forced to shutdown my PC. Makes me want to pull all my hair out everytime. I think I will get a USB to SATA converter and see whether I can access the drive from there. Previously, I had successfully retreived some of my friend’s HDD information using this method. But all I have with me right now is for the 2.5 inch HDD (yes, notebook HDD) and my HDD for the desktop is the 3.5inch type so it is not compatible. Maybe I will be taking half day leave to get some of the stuff like an extra HDD as well as the USB converter from Sim Lim Square. It’s a big waste of time and money and not to mention effort.

I guess it is just my luck that the partition that I kept all my data in is the one that is causing all the problems. Yes, that’s the primary drive too. I can’t boot up (I am using another computer right now) and I had to move my HDD to my the other PC to do any rescue work. This is a warning to everyone, do backups often! Don’t expect your HDD to live forever! But I guess this is why people like me who works in the IT line still have a job. If everything lasts forever, we will all be jobless!