KSB/Fantasy Football Correlation

posted by Jon

In a recent study done by a person, results have shown that drinking Knoll Street Brewery's beer increases fantasy football performance. The study cites a fantasy football league known as "In a Minute Honey" in which four of the ten league managers happened to be part of a Knoll Street Brewery sponsored "beer club". These four managers were the last four remaining in the fantasy playoffs. As news of this correlation has spread, fantasy football players everywhere are pulling whatever strings possible in hopes of joining the KSB beer club. Representatives of Knoll Street Brewery have declined to comment.

December and January brews

posted by Jon

The December brewing will be done on Sunday, December 19. We will be joined by our Hungarian beer club members. As originally planned, we will be brewing a smoked porter.

You may recall the post about the Von Bora Belgian Strong that was done as a side batch. Our January brew will be piggybacked with that side batch. I purchased a special yeast for that batch, White Labs' WLP545. It is a strain of yeast that is only released for a couple of months every year. It is a great yeast for Abbey Ales and Belgian Strong Ales. I am planning on keeping the Von Bora in the primary fermenter until January. Our January brew, a Belgian Blonde Ale, will be pitched directly onto the yeast cake left over from the Von Bora, meaning we don't have to buy any extra yeast and I don't need to do a yeast starter.

Food pairings

posted by Jon

When pairing foods with beer, it's often smart to pair foods with a lot of flavor with a beer that can hold its own, flavor-wise.

An example: When eating Buffalo wings tossed in homemade habanero sauce and served with homemade gorgonzola dressing, why not try it with a Sinister black IPA from Knoll Street Brewing?

December Update

posted by Jon

Delivery time!

In the next few days you will all be receiving a six-pack of Gourdon, our imperial pumpkin ale. We've been told that it's better than Ichabod and we agree. The cider is also ready. I'm assuming that all of you will want a sixer of the cider as well. The cider is literally the best cider I've ever had. If you don't want a cider, let me know (after that glowing endorsement, how could you say "no"?). The cider is $6.00 for the six-pack. Be careful with this stuff. I never did a gravity check, but it tastes/feels more like a wine than most ciders I've had.

There are a few expectations that we have. We have a very limited supply of bottles and the six-pack holders. When you are finished with a beer, please rinse the bottle out well and return it to us. We're not your mom who cleans up after you. We don't feel it's too much to ask that you make sure it's rinsed out well. If you decide to savor your beer a bit and not drink all of it in a month, please fill out your empty six-pack with bottles of your own. We can only use pry off bottles (no twist-off) and we'd prefer the taller brown bottles (New Holland, Bells, Shorts, etc). The short squat bottles that Founders, Abita and some Belgian breweries sometimes use don't fit in the six pack holder.

The Intruder (November's brew) has been racked off to the secondary, where it is sitting on 6 vanilla beans, 2 oz of light toast oak chips and 2 oz Maker's Mark bourbon. Hopefully it will be bottled soon.

The beer for December will be a smoked porter and will be brewed in a couple of weeks. It has not been named.

Quad post, part 4: Upcoming

posted by Jon

So, what's on tap?

The cider was bottled today. I'm absolutely thrilled with the flavor. After bottling them (with corn sugar) I almost regret putting the corn sugar in, because even without carbonation it's fantastic. Almost a low alcohol apple wine. The apple flavor is coming out a ton more than the last time I made cider.

The Gourdon Lightfoot Imperial Pumpkin Ale (aka "Pumpkin Trucker") was bottled a little over a week ago. Also seemed to have some great flavor. I'm quite excited about this one.

Both the cider and the pumpkin will be delivered by the first weekend in December, two weeks from now. I'm assuming all of you will want a sixer for $6. If not, I'd gladly pay for, and enjoy, the leftovers.

Quad post, part 3: Deliveries

posted by Jon

Time for the fruits of our labor, and your money, to finally pay off. The first of the Sinister Black IPAs are being delivered. All of them should be in your hands by the end of this weekend. Just a warning: It's wicked hoppy, but not too bitter.

Quad post, part 2: Von Bora

posted by Jon

Monday evening was our chance for a side batch, partially financed by Ryan Beld. This was Ryan's first foray into the homebrewing world and he decided to make the most of that chance by showing up late. Really late. Like, about to pitch the yeast late.

We had decided on a Belgian strong ale, in the style of a Rochefort 10. You will notice the use of Belgian candi sugar in this recipe. Belgian candi sugar is an invert sugar. Regular old white sugar is made of two types of simple sugars, Glucose and Fructose.When a yeast is attempting to ferment white sugar, it spends quite a lot of time breaking the sugar down into a more fermentable form. Inverting the sugar breaks it down to that form, making it less work for the yeast. Now, Belgian candi sugar costs about $6 per lb. We needed 3 lbs for this recipe. That's $18. How is Belgian candi sugar made? Take regular old white sugar, add water and a pinch of citric acid and heat to 160°. After 15 minutes or so the sugar turns from clear to pale yellow. Another half hour or so it is a deep amber. Heat to 300° (hard crack), pour out, cool and crack. 3 lbs of Belgian candi sugar. For about $2.

Why do Belgian-style beers often contain Belgian candi sugar, you ask? Belgian candi sugar raises the gravity, and thus the alcohol, of the beer without adding a lot of body. If you take a Belgian strong and an Imperial Stout, they might have the same ABV%, but the stout will be much thicker.

On to the beer geek stuff:

Von Bora Belgian Strong Ale (my lord Katie)

6:48 Water heated

7:05 Water @ 155°. 1 lb Belgian biscuit malt, 1/2 lb British chocolate malt and 1 lb CaraMunich malt steeped.

7:35 Grains sparged with 1/2 gallon hot water

8:00 12 lbs Pilsen LME and 3 lb Belgian candi sugar added

8:36 Boil started, 1 oz Northern Brewer hops added

Somewhere in here Ryan B shows up

9:06 1 oz Hallertauer and 1 oz Styrian Golding hops added

9:21 1 tsp irish moss and 1 tsp yeast nutrient added

9:31 1 tsp Ground coriander seed added

9:36 flameout

At this point we would normally use the wort chiller to cool the wort down to a pitching temperature, however, since this is a side batch, we are using our new plastic fermenter tub. Which is skinnier. As in it is skinny enough that the wort chiller won't fit into it. So, we take the bucket and place it in the sink surrounded by cold water and a bag of ice. An hour and a half later we're still not close to a pitchable temperature, so I leave the bucket (covered) in the sink and pitch the yeast the next morning.

6:20 Yeast pitched @ 72 °

O.G. = 1.130. That's right, this baby's gonna be around 13%.

Quad post, part 1: Intruder

posted by Jon

Last week Friday Ryan and Amy dropped in for some brewing. Our November beer is the Intruder Imperial Stout. It will probably end up being aged with vanilla in the secondary, so technically it would be Vanilla Intruder. We had a fine selection of beer to go along with the brewing process. We enjoyed a couple of homebrews, Bell's Hell Hath No Fury, Third Coast Old Ale and Expedition Stout as well as Founder's Backwoods Bastard. Due to the fact that all of these are over 10% ABV we don't have a ton of pictures. Also, my memory is a bit fuzzy.

For the beer geeks:

7:00 Water heated

7:55 Water at 155°. 1/2 lb black patent malt, 1 lb British chocolate malt, 1/2 lb crystal 120L° malt, 1 lb roasted barley and 2 lb flaked oats steeped.

8:25 1/2 gallon sparge

9:00 9.3 lb light LME added

9:12 boil started, 1 oz Nugget hops added

9:26 3 oz Willamette hops added

9:42 2 oz Willamette hops added

9:57 4 oz coffee, 2 squares baker's chocolate, 1 tsp irish moss and 1 tsp yeast nutrient added

10:12 heat off, 2 oz Willamette added

10:43 yeast (WL001 2nd gen starter) pitched @ 80°

O.G. was about 1.078

By the next morning the airlock was already bubbling like crazy, which made me happy since this yeast had been in the fridge for about 6 months.

Early November Update

posted by Jon

Well, at this point in the month I was expecting to update you all to tell you that the cider is bottled and the Imperial Pumpkin was ready to transfer to the secondary. Instead I'm telling you that the cider is still bubbling away in the primary and the Imperial Pumpkin is going to be bottled today. Apparently the yeast that we used for the Pumpkin (White Labs English Ale WLP002) is a vigorous little bugger that finishes off a beer in a matter of days. The latest gravity reading on the Pumpkin was 1.022, so we're almost at 7% ABV.

Sinister (our Black IPA) should be ready for drinking in the next week or so. You will all be getting your first sixer then. Also, the cider will be bottled in the next week, so look forward to that as well. A reminder that the cider is $6 for a six-pack for those who want it.

The next brewing day is also this upcoming week. The Aukeman family will be joining us this time as we will be brewing Intruder Imperial Stout.

Imperial Pumpkin Ale

posted by Jon

Despite the worst storm in Great Lakes history (based on air pressure) we decided to forge ahead and continue with our scheduled brewing night.

The brewing of the October batch was attended by Jon, Ryan, Jeff and Kevin.

On Monday afternoon I did a starter and pitched our yeast (WhiteLabs English Ale Yeast WLP002) and had some good bubbling by Tuesday. Tuesday afternoon I roasted a couple of pumpkins for 2 1/2 hours at 275°. I then scooped out the meat. I figure we had about 4 lbs of pumpkin to work with.

Time line:

7:20 2 gal water started

7:40  Water at 155, started steeping grains (4 lb Crystal 10°L) and pumpkin (in a grain bag)

8:10 Grains sparged with 1/2 gal hot water

8:20 9.3 lbs light LME added

8:50 Rolling boil. Pumpkin removed and 1 oz Magnum hops added

9:20 1/2 lb lactose added

9:35 1 oz Sterling hops, 1/2 tsp ginger, 1/2 tsp cloves, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1 vanilla bean (sliced and cut into eighths), 2 tsp irish moss and 1 tsp yeast nutrient added

9:50 Flameout

10:00 Chilling wort

10:35 Yeast pitched @ 77°

The gravity was 1.070. We were hoping for around 1.080. This should end up at around 7% ABV.

This is the first batch of beer that we've ever added lactose. Those of you who remember your high school science no doubt remember that lactose is a type of sugar, commonly found in milk. The difference between lactose and other sugars is that lactose will not ferment. Any other sugars, whether is is regular old table sugar or the sugars we get from the malted barley will ferment when yeast is added. The lactose stays as lactose, which means that once the beer is finished, it will provide sweetness, rather than alcohol.

As usual, there were some tasty beverages consumed.

Some of us also consumed some not so tasty foods, such as pumpkin that has been simmering for an hour.

Next up is November's brew, Breakfast stout. We will be brewing in a few weeks. More details later.

The House Cider Rules!

posted by Jon

We've decided that in honor of autumn in Michigan, we will be doing a hard cider.

"Now wait," you say, "I'm not paying $10.00 a month for some wussy drink like hard cider. I'm paying for BEER!"

You're right. You're not paying for $10.00 a month for hard cider. This will be done in addition to our normal monthly beer. Once the cider is done we will be selling 6-packs for $6.00 each (limit one). It should be drinkable around Christmas. You may choose whether or not to buy any at that point.

And yes, my apologies to John Irving.

"Just a Man Loving His Beer"

posted by Ryan and Jon

Dry-hopping is a method used by brewers to give more of a hops taste to a beer. After the beer has had time to ferment in the primary fermenter it is moves to a secondary fermenter to allow it to clear up a bit. Dry-hopping is adding hop pellets to the carboy (secondary fermenter) at the same time as the beer. Usually the beer is swirled around a bit to get the hops mixed in well.

Apparently the line between "dry-hopping" and "dry-humping" is not as clear as one might think.

73 lb Package

posted by Jon

If you had $212.00 of other people's money, how would you spend it?

Yup, me too.

What you see pictured here is all of the ingredients for our next two batches (October's Pumpkin Ale and November's Breakfast Stout) as well as enough liquid malt extract for 4-6 more batches and extra magnum and nugget hops.

How to Drink Beer

posted by Ryan

Hey, I thought I'd pass along this video I found on the website Lifehacker.  I've got to get me one of those Sam Adams glasses.

 

Also, enjoy this picture of Jon trying to catch a salmon this past Wednesday.  It could have been one of the greatest moments of our lives, but he missed...better luck next time!

Also, Jon and I are awaiting the next shipment of beer and will be setting a date for the next adventure. Stay tuned for dates!

Black IPA

posted by Jon

I woke up on Tuesday morning to find a healthy bubbling in the yeast starter, so brewing day was moved up 24 hours. The brewers of batch #1: Jon, Ryan and Steve.

Time line for beer geeks:

7:06  2 gal water started

7:31  Water at 155, started steeping grains (1 lb American Munich, 1/2 lb De-bittered Black, 1/2 lb CaraMunich, 1/2 lb CaraPils)

8:07  Grains sparged with 1/2 gal hot water

8:13  10 lbs light LME added

8:47  Rolling boil, hops added (1/2 oz Summit, 2 oz Willamette)

9:02  1/2 oz Simcoe added

9:17  1/2 oz Simcoe added

9:32  1/2 oz Amarillo, 1 tsp irish moss and 1/2 tsp yeast nutrient added

9:37  Servomyces (yeast nutrient) added

9:47  Flameout. 1/2 oz Summit, 1/2 oz Amarillo and 1/2 oz Simcoe added

10:05  Chilling wort

11:08  Yeast pitched @ 75

The gravity reading after pitching yeast was 1.072. We were hoping for an OG of 1.082. This means that if we achieve the intended FG, we will be right around 7% ABV. Not too bad. Also, the IBU will be close to 100, maybe just a bit under. This is going to be one hoppy beer. We will be dry-hopping the secondary with 1 oz Amarillo and 1/2 oz Simcoe.

Those of you who missed this occasion missed out on some tasty beverages.

You also missed out on Steve having some major battery/wiring issues on his preferred method of transportation.

It took Steve about 15 minutes to get from the driveway to the end of the block. As far as we know, he still hasn't arrived home. If any of you see him between Zeeland and Jenison, please give him a ride home.

Beer was bubbling in the fermenter quite well on Wednesday morning. The bubbling was loud and rapid enough that Kendra was afraid to go into the fermenting room (the rest of the family calls it the bathroom) by herself. Look for this one to be drinkable around the end of October.

Preparations

posted by Jon

The ingredients for batch #1 arrived on Friday:

Clockwise from top right we have liquid malt extract (plastic jugs), hop pellets, grains for steeping and dry malt extract (plastic bag hiding under grains).

The plan is to brew our IPA this coming Wednesday. One of the most helpful steps in brewing a tasty beer is using a yeast starter. I will run you all through the process of why and how this is done.

First, the "why".

The step in the brewing process that is probably the most important is the step that hardly anything is done to the beer. It is the period of time between when the beer is taken off the stove and when the yeast is "pitched". When this cooling process starts, the wort (beer before the yeast is added) is usually over 150 degrees. Yeast is a picky little guy that works best about 70 degrees and will be killed if the temperature gets too high. Yeast is usually pitched in a beer at 75 to 80 degrees. While the wort is cooling it is quite susceptible to other things (bacteria and such) floating around in the air that are looking for a nice warm spot to land where they can eat and reproduce. The longer a wort takes to cool, the more time these bad guys have to jump into the wort and start reproducing. Because of this you want to cool the wort as quickly as possible.

The yeast starter brings the big guns. By the time you pitch your yeast, some stuff has already more than likely landed in the wort. If you've got 5 gallons of wort, that's enough food for bad strains to coexist with the good yeast for a while. The longer the bad stuff has, the worse your beer is going to taste. Enter: Yeast Starter. A yeast starter is essentially a small batch of beer, between 1 pint and 2 quarts. When the yeast is added to the starter it has a chance to reproduce like crazy without competition. After 48 hours or so, the amount of yeast in your starter has increased exponentially. Once the wort is cooled and a few of our bad strains of junk has had a chance to get in there, instead of adding a little bit of yeast, we have a whole army of yeast, ready to devour any sugars and reproduce even more. Our bad little beasties never had a chance.

Now, the "how".

The first thing we do is make our little batch of beer. I'm using 1 quart of water and 1 cup of dry malt extract (DME). The DME is the fermentable sugar that the yeast is going to eat and turn into alcohol.

We let the starter boil for 10 minutes and then let it cool. I put the sauce pan in an ice water bath to cool it off as quickly as possible. Once it has cooled to 70/80 degrees I pour it into a growler and shake it vigorously (yeast likes oxygen).

The yeast we are using is yeast that was harvested from another batch of beer. It has been in a canning jar sitting in my fridge for a couple of months. I took it out earlier to get it to room temperature. The yeast is poured into the growler and our starter is done.

By Wednesday the airlock on top of the growler will be bubbling like crazy as the yeast starts to eat the sugars and release carbon dioxide.

Hope you enjoyed your lesson on yeast starters. Look for a new post on Thursday with a play by play of the brewing of our IPA.

The First Beer is Ordered

posted by Jon

An order was placed last night for the ingredients to make our first batch of club beer.

Originally the first batch was going to be an imperial pumpkin ale. After extensive research, we have decided to push the pumpkin off for a month. We want to use fresh pumpkin for our beer (rather than canned) and it is recommended that ripe or almost overripe pumpkin be used when brewing with it. These should be a bit easier to find a month or so from now, so look for the imperial pumpkin to be our October batch.

We then decided that a stout was the way to go. With our recent success of a Founder's Breakfast Stout clone, we thought we could just do that recipe again. At the last minute, we shifted gears again.

Our first beer will be a Black IPA. We tried a Mad Hatter clone last winter that turned out quite tasty. We will be doing a variation of the same recipe with two changes. First, we will use Simcoe, Summit and Amarillo hops instead of the Centennial and Columbus that we used for the Hatter. These three varieties are the same that Founder's Double Trouble is brewed with. Secondly we will be using a half pound of de-bittered black malt. This beer will taste like an IPA but look like a stout. Why? Because we can.

The next exciting announcement is that there will be a field trip some time in September for all Beer Club members. We will head to Siciliano's to pick up a new 6.5 gallon plastic fermenter tub. We will probably end up leaving with a few extra purchases as well, including this. After leaving Siciliano's we will sup at Buffalo Wild Wings before parting ways. Any Beer Club members are invited to come along. More details as they become available.

Finally, some reading for you all. Enjoy.

First Post

posted by Jon

Welcome to all of our Knoll Street Beer Club members. Since this is the first post, we will update you on a couple of things and ask for your advice on upcoming beers.

First of all, our first beer will be brewed sometime in the next couple of weeks. We will be starting out with a seasonal favorite, a pumpkin ale. However, since we are all about amping beers up a bit, we will actually be doing an imperial pumpkin ale. More grains, more malt, more hops, more pumpkin, therefore more alcohol and flavor in the finished product. Your first six-pack will be drinkable around Reformation Day (in honor of two famous home-brewers - Martin Luther and John Calvin).

The first of your money has been spent. We made the strenuous trek to Siciliano's in GR (if you ever go to Siciliano's, don't bring a credit card. Seriously. You will spend your limit) and bought a new 5 gallon carboy. This will allow us to have 3 batches going at once.

Now it's time for your comments. We would like to know what types of beers are your favorites, and therefore, which beers we should be brewing. Please choose your top ten (or so) from this list:

American Ales
Amber/Red Ale
Barleywine
Blonde Ale
Brown Ale
Dark Wheat
Double/Imperial IPA
Double/Imperial Stout
IPA
Pale Ale
Porter
Stout
Strong Ale
Wild Ale
Black & Tan
Chile Beer
Wheat Wine
Cream Ale
Pumpkin Ale
Rye Ale

Belgian Ales
IPA
Pale Ale
Strong Ale
Dubbel
Oud Bruin
Gueuze
Lambic
Fruit Lambic
Quadrupel
Saison/Farmhouse
Trippel
Witbier

English Ales
Braggot
Bitter
Brown
ESB (Extra Special Bitter)
Milk Stout
Oatmeal Stout
Old Ale
Russian Imperial Stout
Winter Warmer


German Ales
Altbier
Weissbier
Dunkelwiezen
Hefewiezen
Kolsch

Irish Ales
Irish Stout

Scottish Ales
Scotch Ale/Wee Heavy

American Lagers
American Adjunct Lager
Steam Beer

Czech Lagers
Czech Pilsener 

German Lagers
Bock
Doppelbock
Eisbock
German Pilsner
Maibock/Helles Bock
Helles Lager
Marzen/Oktoberfest
Rauchbier
Schwarzbier
Vienna Lager