An Introduction — or, What I Do With My Hands

I spend a lot of time in front of a screen. Anyone who works in software does.

So the hobbies that have stuck with me are almost all hands-on — things where the feedback loop is physical and the results are edible, drinkable, or visible. I thought it was worth writing about them, partly to share what I’ve learned, and partly because documenting things forces you to think more carefully about what you’re actually doing.

This journal is that space. Less technical than the blog, more personal. Updates on projects, things I’m learning, the occasional reflection.

Coffee roasting

This one started as curiosity and turned into something I can’t imagine being without.

I roast my own beans at home. There’s something deeply satisfying about taking a green bean — which smells like grass and does very little — and developing it into something with actual flavour. The variables are endless: origin, moisture content, drum temperature, airflow, time to first crack, development time after first crack. You can chase it forever.

I’ll write about specific roasts, gear, and the things I’ve gotten wrong (plenty of those).

Sourdough

My starter is about two years old. I’ve killed it twice and revived it once.

Sourdough is the project that never really ends. The bread I make now is meaningfully better than what I made a year ago, which was better than the year before that. I’m still chasing an open crumb and a crust that shatters properly. I’ll get there.

Posts here will cover process, ratios, what I’m experimenting with, and honest photos of the results — including the failures.

Kombucha

A more recent addition. I have two SCOBYs going at the moment and I’m still dialling in the second fermentation — carbonation is inconsistent and I haven’t figured out why yet. Probably temperature. It’s always temperature.

Photography

I shoot mostly digital, occasionally on film. I’m not particularly technical about it — I care more about the image than the gear. But since I’m also building a Python pipeline for processing and organising photos, the two hobbies are starting to overlap.

Both of these were shot within an hour of home. Florida is strange and I love it.

That’s the overview. None of these are things I’m an expert in — they’re things I’m genuinely in the middle of learning. That’s what I’ll write about.