Pearls ...

I brewed a half-batch (~2.5 gallons) of beer Sunday. This is my first batch in about a decade. I'd forgotten most of the methods; but I soldiered through it. I'm trying to lager it. Since I don't, yet, have a wort chiller, I mixed the hot wort with (pre-boiled) cool water and placed it in the fridge. Then I added the yeast about 3 hours later when the mixture had cooled. I used to have all sorts of sanitation problems. My beers usually had excessive head that is often attributed to a bacterial infection. So, this time, I sanitized everything with iodine and pre-boiled the water into which the wort goes.

Even so, it took the fridge most of the night to cool down to its normal temperature. I expect to leave the beer in there fermenting for 3-4 weeks. But I plan to transfer it into a secondary fermenter at some point.

Since I really don't know what I'm doing anyway, I decided to try using dandelion leaves and roots for bittering, rather than hops. I picked them from our yard (tiny yard that it is), chopped 'em up and boiled them in the wort. I still used the requisite Saaz and Hallertauer for flavor and aroma, though. I'm not ready for a totally hop-less beer. But at $6/oz, it's clear that finding other cheaper bittering herbs is the route to go. Even with the dandelions, I used $9 worth of hops in this half-batch.

First brew in a decade. First time to lager. First time to use dandelions. Obviously, a half-batch was the best route, because there's a very good chance this will be a total loss. But you can't win if you don't play, eh? -----

I kinda stopped paying attention to the whole Intelligent Design thing awhile back. But the hype around Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed caught my attention. Most importantly, I appreciated this and this.

But an even more enlightening and less pretentious article is: RTB Scholars Expound on EXPELLED, the Movie. -----