Sorry, once again it’s been too long since we’ve posted anything.  The current plan for the intrepid Flagon Slayers is still the traveling party, brewing together a minimum of every two weeks.  Ross and I are trying hand at growing our own hops this year, as well: Fuggles and Cascade for me, and Wilamette, Cascade, and Tettnag for Ross.  Additionally, we’re attempting fruit gardening for more wine and melomel fodder, and I’ll even be making a lavender wine.  Homebrewing is amazing in that almost anything can become delicious boozeahol.  For inspiration, check Jack Keller’s wine recipes.  There’s a man to be proud of.

Brewing this often really adds up.  What we’ve got in carboys this week:

TheRussian has the experimental Atomic Porter (1.090 OG), black cherry wine, raspberry champagne, pomegranate mead,  Ripper Jack (High abv / high ginger applejack), Nepali Spiced Tea Mead, some sort of peachy white melomel that I made when I was drunk, and Thundertrain (I swear it’s not a bum wine…)

Chris is rocking out lately, with his now legendary Baconated Porter (it literally has a pound of bacon), raspberry melomel, a traditional plain mead, piesporter, a nut brown, and, in a first for our group, sake!

Ross is coming on strong with a nut brown, a crazy high hop IPA, and a volcanic (yes, it erupted) strawberry mead.  We just need to convince him to get more carboys, and it’s ON.

Finally, Fautz can’t brew.

I’ll be putting some of the more interesting recipes up after finals, but in the meantime, if there’s anything that looks interesting, leave a comment and we’ll try to post it.  That’s all for now, and may the party continue…

Wow, time flies. I’ve been brewing a lot more than I’ve been writing lately, which is good for me, bad for those following along at home. I did find the time to finish writing up my favorite of the latest brews, the Christmas Cyser, and it’s one I’d really recommend.

Big news on the Flagon Slayer front, as well. It’s become a sort of travelling brewing party, and as a group, we’re attempting to make two batches a month, showing up on the weekend to whoever has an empty carboy. That being said, I’d like to welcome Chris and Ross on board!

January is Porter season: Chris brewed one (his first brew!) last week, and I’ll be putting one down this weekend if all goes well, and post the recipe.

Finally, I just have to share this: Linux-Based Wine Cellar Monitor. How cool is that?

Well, Halloween’s coming up, and I haven’t updated in quite some time, for the simple reason that we haven’t been up to brewing anything lately.  There are two links that really need to be passed on, though, both involving pumpkins.  The first is actually brewing related: an interesting flickr photo stream about brewing in a pumpkin. The second is just plain cool, for those who are electrically inclined: Evil Mad Scientist’s Snap-O-Lantern. Very nice!

September 13th is the 256th day of the year, which we all know is the number of possible values in 8 bits (what most people mean when they refer to a byte. Not the old PDP guys with their 36 bit words, but I digress), and is therefore suited to a semi-unofficial holiday.  I took a semi-holiday while at work, thanks to Kingdom of Loathing, and now am celebrating by drinking some of the beer left over from the last holiday we celebrated, St. Bartholomew’s Day.

What else did we do, you ask?  Well, I’d be happy to answer: we brewed a pomegranate mead, and Cory taught us how to breathe fire. Pictures at the bottom.  Also, it occurs to me that with saints Bartholomew, Arnold, Hildegarde, Augustine, and the like, we could have a pretty good set of holidays…

What’s next for this intrepid gang of brewers?  Well, Aaron and I have been cooking up a scheme evil enough to match his brilliant name of Zombeer.  Sticking with an islandy, White Zombie theme, we’ve decided it should include sugar cane, kava, and blue lotus.  Should be interesting, no matter what.

Stumbled across a link to a self-described, all-in-one beer brewing machine today on Gizmodo called simply The Device. The Device includes CO₂-pressurized hoses that move the liquid through each stage of the brewing process and temperature control to regulate the fermentation vessel. Keep checking back for more information about Flagon Slayer’s own, Linux controlled, fermentation temperature regulator.

First and foremost, if you haven’t been to http://www.asciimation.co.nz/bender/, you must. Simon is my new hero for building a real live Bender Fermenter. Words can not express.

I’ve been looking into growing my own hops, and it looks surprisingly cheap / easy / fun. Farms will ship you hop rhizomes for $3-$5, depending on the variety, so when they come back in stock early spring I’ll be picking some up. Odd to think about planning which hops you’ll need for brewing a beer a year or two from now, but I like the idea. It gives it a sort of permanence as well as adds pure homebrew points.

This Friday, as I’m sure you all know, is St. Bartholomew’s day, the patron saint of beekeeping, and in Cornwall the Blessing of the Mead is still celebrated every 24th of August. As such, I’ve decided on a Flagon Slayer party, where we’ll be showing Jeremy how to brew by making a Pomegranate Red Mead of my own devising, as well as sampling ample amounts, of course. A bottle of mead or some decent home/microbrew gets you in, and if you read this, you’ve probably already been invited.

Finally, since Kyle asked so nicely, I’m posting the recipe for Sima, a quick brewing Finnish lemon alcopop. It’s delicious, and costs about $2 / gallon to make.

I’m back, and it’s high time for an update. First off, here’s a highly un-instructional video that a couple of us put together for a now mostly-defunct group called HackLouisvile entitled “How Not to Brew Beer“. You’ll need QuickTime to play it, and it’s NSFW due to language.

I managed to find an old favorite recipe, it’s up at http://flagonslayer.wordpress.com/recipes/skull-splitter-dark-ale/. I really need to take a picture of the final product to add to the writeup, as it looks rather unappetizing while it’s in process.

Lastly, I hear Aaron is currently in Mad Scientist mode, with plans for a “Linux-based, fermentation temperature controller for homebrewing.” That sounds quite interesting, and I hope you’ll post what you have here soon. I’d also like to say hi back to the friendly chaps over at Monday Night. I have to say, I’m quite curious about the Mint Chocolate Stout Float.

I leave for California tomorrow, so thought I’d get an update in. Put the Cyser into primary, with the addition of 1/4 cup brown sugar to darken the flavor a little more. It smells delicious, with a 1.121 starting gravity, and should be perfect by December. Full writeup when I rack it into secondary.

Also, in the mail today I received a wine label from Schloss Vollrads, a Matuschka estate that’s been selling wine since the year 1211, and had 27 generations of family history until the suicide. The label is from 1893 and very cool… I’m thinking that with some photoshop magic it’ll be perfect for marking my Mead.

Now’s the time to be laying in for the winter months, so I thought I’d make something Christmassy. The idea at the moment is as follows:

• 2.5 pounds honey
• 1/2 gallon organic apple juice
• 1/2 pound raisins
• several sticks cinnamon
• 20-30 paradise seeds, crushed

…as well as the usual additives. I’m concerned about the raisins, though, as I don’t want them to be overpowering. Might need to go to 1/4 pound to be safe.  I’ll be using campden tablets, to be sure.

Hail, brewers!  Flagon Slayer Brewery is group of techie homebrewers who congregate around Louisville, KY.  We believe that there’s something special about creating a living, bubbling entity, who just happens to produce our friend, Ethanol.  We’ll be sharing recipes and brewing methods along the way, and keep you updated as the batches mature.  Hopefully a few of them will turn out…

Skål!