Matthew Kocsis

I started today trying to make a clone of Rogue’s Morimoto’s Imperial Pilsner, however things didn’t go exactly as planned. I somehow ordered brewmart pilsner malt, and when Scott and I tasted it before pouring it in the boiling water it tasted a bit bitter… After reading the ingredients I found that it was “hopped malt”. It didn’t say that anywhere, and when I ordered it that wasn’t marked. So we gave up on the clone and just made a hoppy pilsner (we added everything from the hop schedule from 15 minutes on). I also think we made a mistake with the malt amount, the clone recipe called for 10lbs of LME, however after using the 8lbs of the hopped malt the OG was 1.045 (reading more on the back of the can shows that this was expected). Looks like the imperial pilsner will need something on the order of 15lbs. Here’s the recipe:

5.5 Gallons Water
7.92lbs Czech Pisner malt (pre-hopped). Boil @ 45 minutes
Saaz pellet hops, 4.4% @ 15 minutes
Hallertauer flower hops, 5.8% @ 15 minutes
Saaz pellet hops, 2.6% @ 1 minute
Tettnang pellet hops, 4.4% @ 1 minute
Wyeast Czech Pilsner yeast

OG 1.045 @ 85F

We were able to cool the wort down well using a mound of snow on my patio. I also used the turkey fryer to bring the water up to boiling before bringing it inside and adding malt/hops, which saved us an hour.

We’ll see how this one turns out, It’ll probably be much hoppier than planned, but what’s brewing without a little experimentation?

Next up: Saison!

At least once a day I have an urge to go west and see some mountains, and while looking at the Wyoming/Montana/Idaho/North Dakota area I found some astounding places that I absolutely have to see.

Fish Lake, Bitterroot / Nez Perce Narional Forests. Darby, Montana

St. Mary Lake, Glacier National Park, Montana

Cathedral Spires, Custer State Park, South Dakota. (Also, Little Devil’s Tower)

Angel’s Landing, Zion National Park, Utah. (Trail to Angel’s Landing, Additional Photo)

Yosemite Back Country, Yosemite National Park, California

Duo Lake, Yukon, Canada (Much farther away than Montana) See also June Lake

Noatak River, Gates of the Artic National Park, Alaska

Tuesday November 4, 2008: Vote for Change. Vote Obama-Biden.

www.voteforchange.com

Linn County Iowa Precinct Information, Linn County Iowa Polling Locations

Thanks to everyone who came out to Toxic Thursdays on the 11th and 18th. We’ll let you know when we’re planning our next events in the CR / IC area!

Toxic Thursdays

Thursdays at Farras (320 E Burlington St. Iowa City)
Club – Dance – House
Dj Lash & DJ Embe
9pm – 2am
$2 at the door (19+)

Thursday September 11, 2008 & Thursday September 18, 2008

www.dj-embe.com

I’ve been pretty busy over the last few weeks but I was still surprised today when I realized that It has been 4 weeks since my last ride. Some friends had a 26 mile route planned, meeting in Hiawatha and going up the Cedar Valley Trail to Center point to get tenderloin sandwiches at Joensy’s (return the same way). I met up with the group, rode to Center Point on a trail that quickly became dirt, and had a good grilled sandwich. I knew I needed a few more miles so I did a jog up to Walker, Troy Mills, and then came back the way I usually start my trips through Alburnett. Total mileage was about 50.3. I was feeling pretty tired when I got back and I realized I hadn’t stopped the bike since leaving Center Point (mile 18). I think I’m going to do something around 85 next weekend and follow it up with my previously planned trip to Dyersville, since I’m going to need a bit more training before taking on the 120 miler.

 My Route

I was going through my movies a few weeks ago and I saw Field of Dreams; I couldn’t help but watch a few favorite parts. Last year on RAGBRAI XXXV we camped in Dyersville, however we never made it up to the field, so I decided that I wanted to go this summer. Driving, however, wouldn’t cut it.

The trip to the field is about 55 miles from Marion, it will probably be closer to 60 once I take into account some backroads needed to stay alive on a bicycle. In the summer of 2005 I did 3 back to back weekends: 55 miles, 100 miles, and 158 miles, so I knew I could make the 110-120 mile trip, I just needed a little training.

Last Saturday I decided I’d like to see a little more of Iowa between Marion and US 20, so I set out on an 82 mile loop at about 10am (I needed to wait for storms to pass). It was a great day for biking, cool and almost rainy in the morning and then sunny but still in the 70s all afternoon. My route took me 6.5 hours (which is still slower than my 12h 36m finish of the 158 mile RAIN 2005), and even as it got hard at the end I was having a good time. I got attacked (physically) by two of those black and red birds this time, so I might have to grab a new helmet next year (one that isn’t back and red).

My Route: Marion – Alburnett – Central City – Coggon – Robinson – Monti – Quasqueton (halfway point) – Rowley – Urbana – Center Point – Robins – Marion. Unfortunately, Routes 13 (Central City to Coggon) and 150 (Rowley – Urbana) were busy 2-lane state routes, so I’ll have to avoid them next time.

Route

Next Saturday I plan on heading up to Dyersville via: Marion – Anamosa – Buck Creek – Delhi – Delaware – Earlville – Dyersville, and I’ll try to return: Dyersville – Earlville – Delaware – Buck Creek – Prarieburg – Central City – Alburnett – Marion. We’ll see if I have to call someone to rescue me.

Route There (65.6 Miles)

Route Back (63.9 Miles)

Also, while I was out on Saturday, my new GPS unit came. John recommended this unit to me, so I purchased a Qstarz BT-Q1000P GPS logger. It can act as an external unit for a PC or a Pocket PC, or just run in log mode and store data points (it’s not a navigation device). I tested it last night running around my neighborhood and it performed exceptionally. Plotting the coordinates on Google Earth, it even displayed me running on the correct side of the road. I’ll put it to use on this next bike trip to get some real statistics.

Future Sounds of the City / Flood the Fund

Saturday June 28, 2008 – Cabo Bar and Grill, 2730 Edgewood Road SW, Cedar Rapids IA (West end of Westdale Mall Complex, corner of Williams and Wiley)

My friends and I are sponsoring a benefit event this Saturday. We’re hoping to get as many people to come as possible. AEGON is matching donations, so everything we make will have double the impact. Donations go to the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation. Please forward this information to anyone you know who is able to make it out.

Minimum $10 donation requested. Free drink provided by CABO bar and Grill.

 Event is All Ages until 9pm, then 21+ only.

1:00 pm – 5:00 pm: Indoor Art Auction
-Gayla Drake Paul live performance

6:00 pm – 10:00 pm: Outdoor live band performances
-Uniphonix – 6:00pm – 7:00pm
-Harmonic Order – 7:20pm – 9:20pm
-Freak Label – 8:45pm – 9:45pm

9:00 pm – 1:45 am: Indoor live DJ performances
-dj embe – 9:00pm – 9:45pm
-Mike “All Nite” Long – 9:45pm – 10:30pm
-TraxXxstaR – 10:30pm – 11:15pm
-Dj Lash – 11:15pm – 12:00am
-Tom Robinson – 12:00am – 12:45am
-Level Matrix – 12:45am – 1:30am

Special Thanks to:
-Cabo Bar and Grill
-Cedar Rapids Art Community
-AEGON
-New Bohemian Music & Arts Festival

I’ve been getting a lot of calls/emails/IMs from family and friends about how the floods are effecting me in the Cedar Rapids area, so here’s some info in case anyone checks here first.

My place in Marion is fine, we’re far enough from the Cedar River that we’re not affected by its rise to +31 feet. Unfortunately, some of my friends in Palo, IA and possibly more near Downtown Cedar rapids are, given that over 1,000 blocks were under water on Friday (check out the map in This article). On Thursday, heavy rain in the morning caused some flash flooding that came within a few hundred feet of my place, however I’m high enough that it was not an issue. Pictures will be posted soon of the flooding in Marion on June 12, 2008.

As it seems like we have too much water, the opposite is also true. Having lost close to 3/4 of its capacity (now back up to 50% according to This report from KCRG news), Everyone has been asked to limit water use to drinking; no laundry, flushing toilets, showers, washing hands… I live in Marion which has a different water system, however they have now connected the Marion system to the Cedar Rapids system to try to maintain pressure (Advisory from City of Marion). We’ll see how this plays out in the next few days.

Here are some pictures that I’ve taken during the last few days. Iowa flood of 2008.

Below is a comparison of how high the waters were on Friday, June 13, 2008. The “Non-Flood” picture was taken sometime after 1985.

(image courtesy of http://www.jithy.com/favorite.htm)

(image courtesy of www.gazetteonline.com)

It’s been a little while since I’ve taken some time to go biking (the Iowa weather recently hasn’t helped convince me either), however it’s been nice recently so I decided to take a quick trip up north. It turned out to be a bit longer than I initially planned, but I covered just shy of 50 miles in a bit less than 4 hours. Only one bike-chasing dog and a few motorcyclists that seemed to forget how bikes (all types) deserve an entire lane when being passed. The wind was about 13kt at 290 (ENE), which was nice once I started heading south from Walker.

My Route (will be updated once gmaps pedometers stops crashing)

My place – Alburnett – Troy Mills – Walker – Center Point – Robbins – Past my place to a friend’s – My place

I just got back from the 2008 Rube Goldberg National Contest, and this year was no exception: the machines were impressive. My friends Adam and John also sent me a link to a cool article about the contest on Gizmodo. Included is a fun video which includes an interview with me at the 2008 Purdue regional competition in February. Here’s the video:

2008 Rube Goldberg Contest