Recipes put on hold

posted by Jon

More for my own sake than anyone else to happens to see this, but these recipes and names are reserved for later use:

"Blue Boy" Belgian IPA 

"The Sentry" Belgian Strong Pale Ale 

"Stagebeast" Belgian Dubbel 

"Margarete" Belgian Quadrupel 

RSVP

posted by Jon

The 1st annual Knoll Street Brewing Anniversary party will be held on August 18. We will be brewing all day and having supper together in the evening. Wives and children are invited. Please let me know ASAP whether you will be coming and how many you will bring. More supper details in the next few days (haven't decided on BYO meat and dish to pass or if I will just do everything).

Update

posted by Jon

Hello all. It's been a bit since I've posted so I figured maybe I should update.

I'm considering doing away with posting all of the play-by-play of every recipe we do. Will any of you be unhappy if this happens? Didn't think so. I have all of the recipes and play-by-play in paper form. If you want one, just ask and I'll give it to you.

Plan on brewing on Saturday, July 28. We will be doing 3 batches, making for a long day. Plan on dawn to past dusk. We will be doing 3 single-hop IPAs. Taking into consideration the size of my garage and the number of people already coming, please talk to me before inviting any non-club people.

I'm still learning more every time I brew. You may think that the last few beers have been great. As good as they might taste, I still have not brewed a batch exactly the way it was supposed to be brewed. Each batch has a) not had a long enough mash, b) not had a long enough boil, or c) not been fermented at the correct temperature. a and b can be taken care of easily enough, but without temperature control (working on it) c will have be solved by using a certain strain of yeast based on the temperature in whatever room of my house I'm fermenting in.

I'm getting extremely low on bottles. Please return as many as possible, as soon as possible. Drink faster, people.

Since we are brewing 2 batches a month, we have actually reached the end of our fiscal year. I assume you are all planning on being a part of beer club for another year. Please get me your $120 as soon as you can.

Please let me know if you will be here for the Knoll Street 2nd Anniversary party in August.

El Jefe Grande

posted by Jon

On May 5 we brewed 2 beers, Kay Sister Ryed and El Jefe Grande. Here are the details on El Jefe.

All Grain - Kay Sister Ryed

posted by Jon

As I had mentioned in a previous post, we have upgraded to all-grain from extract. I will use one of the beers we brewed a couple of weeks ago to explain the difference.

Summer Schedule

posted by Jon

Here's the schedule for the rest of the spring and summer:

June 2: Brewing from 10 AM til ??? Brewing Belgian Tripel and Belgian IPA (May & June beers)

July 10: Brewing from 5 PM til ??? Brewing July beer (or side batch)

July 28: Brewing from 10 AM til ??? Brewing Aug & Sept beers

Aug 18: KSB 2nd Anniversary party 10 AM til ??? Brewing Oct & Nov beers. Supper provided. Wives/kids invited. More details later.

Going All-Grain or: How my garage smells like puke

posted by Jon

Thanks to a substantial investment by Ryan W, KSB has made the jump to all-grain. I've got pictures of the whole set-up that I will post at a later date.

Last week Saturday we brewed our first all-grain batches, Sorry to Say DIPA and Ponzi Scheme Berliner Weisse.

Hello? Is there anybody in there?

posted by Jon

Yes. I know. KSB has gone AWOL. No worries, mates. You'll get your beer.

I've been getting a bit burnt out with the idea that I have to brew at least one batch a month. It's been too long though. I miss it. The plan is to have one day a month for the next three months when I brew two batches to get caught up. After that I will still probably do two beers at a time. It's just easier that way.

Next Saturday, April 14, we will be brewing Sorry to Say DIPA and Ponzi Scheme Berliner Weisse. Ryan A is brewing a DIPA on Friday with a friend so we will be brewing from the same basic recipe in order to compare once they are ready. The Saturday brew day will likely last most of the afternoon/evening. Feel free to stop by. Bring beers to share if you feel inclined.

One of the nice things about brewing 6 beers between March and May is that they will all be ready in late spring or summer. We'll be shying away from the Imperial Stouts and Belgian Quads for a bit.

Just nod if you can hear me.

Coffee, Jamil, Ronnie's Legs, Triple crown, Cider and Oxygen-absorbing Caps.

posted by Jon

This weekend has become a weekend of bottling. By this afternoon I will have bottled 3 batches of beer in a 24 hour period. Let's backtrack a week. A week ago I got a Christmas gift. It was the book Brewing Classic Styles by... (more after jump)

2 Batches, 1 Day

posted by Jon

Last Saturday Ryan W and I spent the afternoon/evening brewing and drinking. We sampled a bunch of IPA's and DIPA's that I had bought in Florida. We also sampled a few homebrews and 3 Floyd's Arctic Panzer Wolf, a DIPA brought to us by some new friends.

There is No vember

posted by Jon

November didn't exist this year. No Knoll Street posts, no beers brewed. Actually, that second part isn't true. We brewed our September beer in November. November's beer will be brewed in December. Tomorrow, actually. December's beer will also be brewed tomorrow. Come on out. Have a beer. Brew with us. Now jump.

Bottle Rinsing Rant

posted by Jon

So I'm kind of getting tired of cleaning out bottles that are returned to me without having been rinsed. I just timed how long it takes to rinse out a bottle by adding a bit of hot water, putting my thumb over the top, shaking it, dumping it out and repeating that process twice more. It took a whopping 23 seconds. That's less than 3 minutes per month. Please make this a habit.

Even with this post, I'm sure I will still continue to get bottles with stale beer and 3 months of mold growth in the bottom. I was thinking that maybe I would charge per dirty bottle returned to me. The problem is that I imagine some of you would rather pay a little more than make a habit of cleaning, which still leaves me to do the cleaning. What I think makes more sense is that I just stop cleaning your bottles. I'll just mark which bottles came from which person. When you crack open a nice IPA and have a massive chunk of red and black mold floating in it, you'll have no one to blame but yourself.

2011/12 lineup

posted by Jon

Trying to finish up planning for the current year. I will post my thoughts and edit as I get input.

Sep 11: "Gourdon Jr." Imperial Pumpkin Ale
Oct 11: Barleywine
Nov 11: Imperial Stout
Dec 11: Winter Warmer/Old Ale
Jan 12: Belgian Pale Ale
Feb 12: American Pale Ale
Mar 12: Berliner Weisse
Apr 12: Belgian Wit
May 12: India Pale Ale
Jun 12: DIPA/IIPA
Jul 12: Belgian Strong Ale
Aug 12: Stout

Brewfest - Budapest Hungary

posted by Jack

As the Central European member of this Brew club, I assigned myself the important and daunting responsibility of  attending the 1st annual Főzdefeszt (Brewfest) in Budapest on Saturday. The festival was actually billed as a craft-beer festival, with a number of Hungarian "brewers" represented. In Budapest a craft-beer brewer is generally a partner in a restaurant, and the actual product is only available if you visit the restaurant. The advance information on the website (www.fozdefeszt.hu) stated that eighteen Hungarian breweries would be represented, as well as a few "outsiders" from Austria, Germany, and Czech Republic.

2010-2011 = Year in Review

posted by Ryan


"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness."  I couldn't let a year go by without reflecting on Knoll Street Brewing's many successes and minimal (but sometimes grave) failures.  Over a year ago Jon and I decided to start this beer club.  I had some initial hesitations because I know that all of us have different preferences on the style of beer we drink.  Jon reminded me of the many reasons to start this club (Friendship, New Recipes, Drinking) and that one of our desires was to help people venture out of their comfort zones to find a new hidden gem or two in their beer drinking experience.  I hope you feel like we helped you do just that. Jump.

Finances

posted by Jon

A quick financial update. Last year Knoll Street Beer Club pretty much broke even financially. Some of the money was used to purchase new equipment (carboy, fermenter, siphon, thermometer, hydrometer). Since we shouldn't have to buy any new equipment this year (unless I break more thermometers or hydrometers) we should have extra money to spend. One of the most expensive parts of brewing is the yeast, which is why I started harvesting yeast last year. However, my harvesting and reusing practices aren't doing a good enough job. Yeast doesn't survive very long. The last couple of yeast starters I've done have had a much longer lag time, since there is less viable yeast left. This is why I have decided to start a yeast library in my freezer. The initial cost would be about the same as a new fermenter and carboy (about $50) and we would be able to reuse yeast for years, as yeast that is properly cared for will survive freezing temperatures for at least a year. Look for posts later this year explaining my new library.

Gourdon will be brewed this afternoon. I have a big ol' pumpkin roasting in my oven as I write this. More details later.

Gourdon's Return

posted by Jon

On my way home from work today I saw pumpkins being sold. This means that instead of a barleywine, we will be brewing "Gourdon" this weekend. Barleywine will now be brewed as our October beer (October 2). "Gourdon" should be ready to drink on Halloween and the barleywine will still be ready around Christmas.

Catching up is hard to do

posted by Jon

Well, it's been almost 2 months since the last post. Summer is over, kids (and teachers) are back to school, the weather is getting cooler insanely hot (???) and I should probably give an update.

Since my last post, three batches of beer have been brewed: Caspian, Batch 22 and The Queen's Rye. If you want the play by play it is in the previous post.

"Caspian" was brewed on 7/18. It is a robust porter styled after GLBC's Edmund Fitzgerald. Should end up around 5.5-6% ABV. I will be bottling it today. [edit: bottled 9/3, F.G. = 1.010, 5.9% ABV]

"Batch 22" was a lot of fun to brew. You may remember that originally is was going to be called "Batch 20" as it was the 20th batch of beer that I had done as a Professional Brewmaster (tic). It was going to have 20 different ingredients. However, since we brewed the Caspian first and I did a side batch of IPA, this beer ended up being my 22nd batch of beer. This meant we now needed 22 ingredients. On brew day, 7/30, Ryan W and I went to the store to pick up our final few ingredients. We decided on fresh ginger root (requested by Ryan B), a 7 oz bag of coconut (which we toasted), 2 chipotle peppers in adobo (yes, you read that correctly) and a stick of brewer's licorice. We added these to our normal ingredients and also added .25 lb of maple syrup than Ryan brought, .6 lb of molasses from the Ippel house and 2 1/2 vanilla beans. I tasted the beer when racking it to the secondary and it has the potential to be the best beer I've done. It should clock in around 10% ABV.

Finally, "The Queen's Rye" was an IPA that turned into a RyePA. This was the final batch of beer to be done in KSB's first fiscal year, so the funds were all tapped out. Ryan W had enough interest in making it a RyePA that he was willing to use his own money to buy a lb of rye malt and a lb of flaked rye. We brewed it on 8/26 with a crazy amount of hops and I will be racking it to the secondary on top of a couple oz leaf hops. We're looking for 6% ABV by the time it's done, so this will be a nice IPA.

We are still looking for suggestions for our next few beers. We will be rebrewing the Gourdon, but still need 11 more recipes. Feel free to comment.

Caspian/Batch22/Queen's Rye

posted by Jon

Play by play of Caspian, Batch 22 and The Queen's Rye: