So what did you do with your OTHER hobbies today?

[seatazzz]

Thought I'd see if this one gets any responses. Yes, the vast majority of us are homebrewers, but there are other (gasp!) hobbies out there, so I thought this might be a nice place for us to post things we may have done for hobbies that aren't directly related to homebrewing.

RULES:

1. No projects directly related to homebrewing.
2. No home improvement projects UNLESS it's something fun that is not absolutely necessary for said house to stay standing.
3. Cooking is fine.
4. Automotive improvements are fine unless it's something absolutely necessary for the continued running of said automotive. I think we already have a thread for that.
5. Absolutely no housework. Ain't nobody got time for that.

Basically anything else we do besides homebrewing for fun. Woodworking, various crafts, metalwork, leisure sports, that sort of thing.

What do y'all think?

 

[day_trippr]

In my life I have riffled through numerous hobbies and sports, including skiing, horsemanship, flyfishing, boating and sailing, HO model railroading, woodworking, nitro-methane powered R/C flight, homebuilt computing, and ice racing, to list the ones I can remember. Of all those, I'm pretty much down to just the boating and flyfishing, woodworking, and I'm still building our computers (2 in the last 12 months).

I still have all of the model railroading stuff packed away to hand down in the hope a descendant will enjoy that, as well as all of the R/C aircraft I built and flew. Been thinking of resurrecting a couple of my R/C planes and re-upping my license, and as always I'm definitely looking forward to fishing.

Cheers!

 

[hottpeper13]

Onions,basil and parsley are up, planted peppers and tomatoes yesterday. Also went to a muskie symposium and excited for the up coming season.

 

[bailey mountain brewer]

Other hobby activities for today..

Got my fly rod and some gear out to check it and get ready for the upcoming trout opener here in PA. Seems I need a new fly organizer and I'll tie new lines and whatnot. This is a hobby my wife and I both enjoy.

Cleaned the lenses on our (mine and my daughter's) telescope. Plan to get it out tonight and also try to image Jupiter and it's great red spot. This I haven't accomplished yet, the photography side of this hobby is something I still have a lot to learn about.

Cheers!

 

[MaxStout]

Not exactly "hobby," but some minor home repair yesterday. I do kind of enjoy this stuff. A little amateur plumbing--replaced the utility faucet above the laundry basin. The old one was acting wonky, and the flow would vary. Didn't want to wait until it busted open or something. A trip to Lowe's and $40 later, had a new one. Just a matter of sweating copper with a propane torch. I guess it's tangentially related to brewing, as I wash up brew gear in that tub.

 

[Agent]

This weekend was spent casting up some new shotgun slugs and last night I got around to loading up one set. Starting with one oz at around 1400fps. Then I get to tweak the 1 7/16 oz slug to hit 1300fps.

Unlike @hottpeper13 I've only thought about my seed starts for the third week running.

 

[fatjay]

I finished my second chicken coop.

No chicks this year so I have to make my own. And by make my own, i mean isolate my rooster and 12 hens and wait a couple weeks, then take the eggs and incubate them.

 

[shoengine]

Rooster gigolo! That'd make a good reality TV show. We weren't allowed to have roosters in our city, but the gal's egg song was just as about as loud.

 

[seatazzz]

Exactly what I was looking for, great!!!

My hobbies go in cycles; knitting, sewing, learning (slowly) the violin; right now it's candymaking. Been making pulled mints (or at least attempting to) for a couple of weeks now; fortunately unlike other groceries right now, sugar is cheap. Made two batches yesterday after several failed attempts that look promising. My mother's favorite candy is wintergreen lozenges; been trying to replicate them so she can have fresh ones whenever she wants. By the way if you want a great way to exercise your hands and forearms, candy pulling by yourself is the shiznit. Also makes the house smell like bengay (in the case of wintergreen).

 

[fatjay]

I also like to dabble in music as well.

 

[fatjay]

Rooster gigolo! That'd make a good reality TV show. We weren't allowed to have roosters in our city, but the gal's egg song was just as about as loud.

The local township tried to place restrictions 2 years ago, but the people rose up. We're not even a city/town. Just a bunch of homesteads and farmsteads on a small mountain. 150 chicken owners lined up to tell the township where they can put "restrictions".

 

[whoaru99]

Worked on consolidating some electrical/electronic parts into one storage box and confirming I still have all the necessary bits to finish a pair of KT88 parallel, single-ended monoblock tube amplifiers.

 

[Tony B]

There are other hobbies?
Do tell…

 

[jrgtr42]

I've got a number of other hobbies besides homebrewing (and drinking.)
Combination of a hobby and supporting the kiddo; I spent last night retaping hockey sticks - he plays for the town youth league, and will be adding a club team to that next year. He's a goalie. And with him, I found a local old guys league that I joined. I haven't played myself for longer than I want to admit, but have been helping coach his team. All this to say I needed to retape one of my sticks, both of his goalie sticks and his regular stick - he still does one practice a week in regular skater gear compared to his goalie rig.
Also I'm a (n amateur) musician - I'm a legend in my own basement. Though I have enough guitars and whatnot to rig a full band, with plenty of extras. I've also gotten into building pedals, over the weekend I sorted through the parts for the next one I'm going to put together.
Not to mention things like skiing, boating (mostly sailing) my garden, and so on that I haven't done anything about recently.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Since cooking is allowed… yeah, I prepare decent meals at home I also bake. I bake sourdough about every two weeks, cookies and treats for holidays. Don’t mind cooking a fish I’ve caught either.

In my youth, many hobbies came and went, keeping an aquarium, candle making, bottle cutting, - didn’t like working with yarn or thread much. A while back I was creating content of my travels to share on YouTube, lol remember YouTube? I’ve though of adding some new stuff on brewing, maybe my HBC should have a channel.

 

[Tony B]

Honestly, similar to some that have posted, I have had and continue several hobbies though with less time due to life, my primary hobby for the last year plus has been brewing.
I still currently dabble in fishing , I was building my own rods for a few years. I was very into kayak fishing for a few years. Always cooking. I have a pretty solid sourdough starter going but yet to bake a decent loaf out of it. Disc golf, I can still throw a decent round, beating some of the youngsters. I used to hunt a lot, haven’t done that in 12 years or so. Skiing. I moved to Lake Tahoe and lived there for about 5 years when my knees were still worth a ****. Mountain biking. I used to love that. It’s been many moons since I climbed a mountain on a single track and then bombed it back down.
So many hobbies. All good times. Life goes by too fast. Enjoy as many as you can.

 

[DuncB]

Tied a couple of streamers today for saltwater flyfishing, ordered a new vice for fly tying and could go fishing if the damm wind would drop!!

All ready though to brew a best bitter / pale ale tomorrow and add in my fresh hops.
Just supping a brett only ferment IPA and listening to some music.
The parascending hobby is a distant memory but the mushroom growing is a work in progress.

 

[Bramling Cross]

I vomited out two songs. Both were the same ol' trash, quick and easy to record. The second one had a nice hook on the lyric "but you'll never give a **** again." Not sure where that came from (as is often the case with lyrics, they just kinda happen with the melody), but I've been singing it all night, trying to get it to give up the goods.

It didn't give up the goods and I'll likely forget about it by Sunday.

Eventually, it'll make its way off my hard drive, then onto a portable HD, then into a box where it will sing its song until the media it is recorded upon dies. And that'll be the last of it.

Don't feel bad for that dying song. It will live a far better life than its predecessors that had the misfortune to be birthed onto expensive four track tape.

It blows my mind how cheap storage is in 2025.

 

[Hoochin'Fool]

My latest (non-beer-related) obsession has been cooking Thai cuisine. Pad Ga Pao is just mind blowing for this german/norwegian spice addict.

Great with chicken (breast or thigh), shrimp, or pork (tenderloin, thinly sliced). My favorite was the pork tenderloin.

 

[fatjay]

This was a low effort one.

String lights.

Under my solar panels.

It looks nice, I think.

 

[shoengine]

This was a low effort one.

String lights.

Under my solar panels.

It looks nice, I think.

Huh. Solar panels not on a roof. Not sure why I hadn't considered that before.

 

[Brewer dad]

Dry fire focusing on a good trigger press at semi speed. Checked my seedlings and am hoping to finally get them hardening off tomorrow after this warm day dies off. Finished by working my bench press a bit, then off to work.

Some of my “hobbies” also bleed into my professional life but I think I would keep up with them even if they didn’t.

 

[seatazzz]

Friends, I am really digging on all these responses!

I was into fishing a very long time ago when my paternal grandpa was alive, he taught me how to river fish (not flyfish, never got to that point), tie a good hook, get a worm on said hook without killing it, and also how to step on a bullhead to get it off my hook. Lost my pole a few moves ago but might have to take it up again, since I inherited grandpa's truly ancient tackle box with some things still useable in it.

The other thing I want to get into is building more things with wood. I have my dad's truly ancient (and still very working) Craftsman table saw, circular saw, jigsaw, and his bandsaw that he inherited from his father (above mentioned grandpa). Been jonesing after a chopsaw for a few years now, maybe this year is the year I finally drop the hammer on one. There's a joke in our house; all the tools are mine unless they're purchased for the maintenance of bowling balls. Bowling was also a hobby until pandemic hit, then my favorite house closed down; just haven't felt like it ever since then.

 

[fatjay]

Huh. Solar panels not on a roof. Not sure why I hadn't considered that before.

My back patio is south facing and concrete, it's to hot to use during the summer. I needed a roof. Material prices were crazy. So I picked up some steel and welded together a frame, then got a pallet of recycled solar panels for virtually free. Repaired the panels and stuck them on. Now I have a roof and 11kw of solar.

 

[Agent]

I finished my second chicken coop.

No chicks this year so I have to make my own. And by make my own, i mean isolate my rooster and 12 hens and wait a couple weeks, then take the eggs and incubate them.

Do remember to set your timer, unless you want to be surprised by chicks hatching before you've removed the turner rack.

39 set and at least 10 duds. So probably 20 roosters.

 

[firerat]

I need to go to the range. Been too long.

 

[fatjay]

View attachment 871331
Do remember to set your timer, unless you want to be surprised by chicks hatching before you've removed the turner rack.

39 set and at least 10 duds. So probably 20 roosters.

i plan to raise them as broilers for the first 3 months, then when I know who's the males, i'll cull, pluck, and prepare them for the freezer.

Do you do anything for marek's?

 

[DuncB]

Moved the Nuke hive into a full size box and added some extra frames.

Went through the big hive, nearly 3 boxes of honey and 3 of brood, not slowing down yet although autumn seems to be here.
Watched the fresh hop ale fermenting.

 

[Brewsmith]

Some of you know I’m a musician and music educator. My hobbies are some flavor of making things, and when the hobbies also assist the music end of things, it’s a total win.

I recently started building guitar pedals. I got a bunch of things going back in December but then I moved and everything got put on hold. Today I got them closer to completed. With some assistance from the wife’s Cricut, I got vinyl graphics and labels made. Tomorrow I can clearcoat the cases and then do final assembly and soldering.

For all the guitarists and electronics folks, I’m new to electronics. I’ve built instrument and soldered jacks and pickups, but this has been a good dive into getting better at soldering, sourcing parts, and trying to do most of it from scratch. The pcbs came from Pedal PCB, and are all clones of fairly well known guitar/bass pedals. You can probably figure out which is which. I’ll post finished photos soon.

 

[madscientist451]

One of my other hobbies is messing around with old Saab cars, which you can still get pretty cheap. Yesterday, I got my 2004 9-5 ARC wagon on the lift at a friend's garage to investigate an exhaust problem and it turns out this is a good time to drop the sump and investigate possible sludge buildup on oil the pick up screen. Then the discussion turned to boosting HP by reprogramming the ECU and possibly going to a 3" downpipe and sport exhaust. The stock HP for the ARC I is 220 but I believe I can get it up to 275 by simply re-programming. My feeling is for now is leave the old 9-5 stock and see if I can get another 10 years out of it. However I've got an 1998 Turbo convertible that is much more fun to roar around with so its a more likely candidate for a ECU re-map. Stock HP is 185 and reportedly a stage 1 tune takes it up to 220 or so. The reported 0-60 time isn't really all that great by today's standards, but with the top down, running errands around town is way more fun.