It’s been a while since I made beer, perhaps as long as a year. Since I haven’t thrown any parties this year I didn’t have any deadlines in which I needed beer by some date or another and it takes me personally a long while to go through five gallons of beer.
But I ordered supplies a while back, to long ago really they may not be in prime condition anymore but I cleaned and sterilized the equipment and boiled up some wort. This should make decent hefewiezen once it ferments.
Despite making a conscious effort to not fill the pot with too much water I failed and the wort overflowed as it seems to do every time I make beer. So the problem is I forget I rinse the grains. My making beer is a called extact with grain (vs just extract or all grain), the first few steps are to boil a couple of gallons of water and then steep grains in the water for about half an hour.
I remember not to put to much water in the pot but completely forget that once the steeping happens I will be rinsing the grains to get all of the grainy goodness. Which leaves me with too much water. When I add the dry malt extract I don’t have enough pot.
As the DME is dissolving it leaves a thick froth on top of the wort and as it starts boiling, over the edge it goes. Once the boil starts going and the DME is dissolved in the water and some of the liquid is boiled off there is enough room but I have to baby it for like half an hour before I can get all the DME into the wort.
But no matter I followed Charlie Papazian’s admonishments and relaxed and had a beer.
Wort is now made and safely stored in the plastic fermenter. Next weekend I’ll move it to the glass.
I think it’s time to replace some equipment through. I think I’ll order the makings for the infamous bourbon stout tomorrow. At the same time get new air locks and rubber stoppers and probably some hoses.
Beer
So when you go to google and do a search, what you searched for appears in the logs of the websites you go to from that search. There’s software that goes through the logs and brings them together, and people who run websites comb over them for their own self aggrandizement or at least to decide where resources should be expended.
I think my favorite search in February in the category I wish I had a page that answered that search is:
Biblical History vs Real History
I’m of the opinion that they have almost nothing to do with each other. A book I liked a lot on the subject is called 101 Myths of the Bible by Gary Greenberg. The subtitle is How Ancient Scribes Invented Biblical History.
This book isn’t so much a debunking of the bible but rather it is properly treats it as myth and shows the antecedent stories from which the bible was created. It takes a quick look at 101 places in the Old Testament looking at what the Bible says and what can be learned about the context and other sources to find the real story. The early myths are connected to earlier tellings of the same stories in Egyptian and other cultures. Later stories are shown to be created for political propaganda purposes. Names and groups were changed for political advantage.
A book covering similar ground for the New Testament is called The Jesus Mysteries by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, which has the subtitle, Was the “Original Jesus” a Pagan God? Sadly I lent my copy of the book to someone and don’t even recall who anymore. The premise of the book is that Jesus’ biography is consistent with a whole series of “Godmen” before him. They shared some common traits such as:
- Osiris-Dionysus is God made flesh, the savior and “Son of God.”
- His father is God and his mother is a mortal virgin.
- He is born in a cave or humble cowshed on December 25 before three shepherds.
- He offers his followers the chance to be born again through the rites of baptism.
- He miraculously turns water into wine at a marriage ceremony.
- He rides triumphantly into town on a donkey while people wave palm leaves to honor him.
- He dies at Eastertime as a sacrifice for the sins of the world
- etc…
I recall thinking that they overstated their case somewhat, but if even a fraction of their thesis is correct it changes how we must view the Jesus story.
Even if you don’t believe a lot of the Jesus Mysteries the thing to come away realizing the lack of authentic contemporaneous evidence of Jesus:
- There is no contemporary writing about Jesus. They don’t start to appear until a century or so after he was supposed to have died.
- No first century source knows anything about Jesus, Joseph, Mar, Bethlehem, the miracles, the Trial, etc
- The Gospels don’t appear until the mid second century
That’s something at least for someone to find regarding the difference between real history and biblical history.
Philosophy/Religion