Jensen Haus Home Brewing

I’ve learned a valuable lesson in the beer brewing process. Just because you want to transfer the beer from the primary, and a full week has gone by, it doesn’t mean the beer is ready to transfer. I had a continued fermentation in the Secondary over the last two weeks. So, last night I transferred the batch to another carboy to settle for another week. If I make this beer in future, I will be using my 6.5gal carboy to do the primary fermentation so I can see it to make sure its done. I guess I should have expected this with this recipe. Given the addition of 1lb of candi sugar, I’m sure the yeast had a ton more to munch on. I did sample a glass last night though. Despite being flat, it was a tasty brew.

At the rate we keep getting snow (in frickin’ April!), I should be calling this batch “Snowblower de Saison”. Craig and I brewed up the Lawnmower de Saison kit from Midwest last night. I opted for the White Labs liquid option. (Belgian Wit Ale WLP400). This is, hands down, one of the most involved boils I’ve done. Two kinds of LME, a 1lb package of Candi Sugar, Three Hop additions, Grains of Paradise, Whole Coriander and Bitter Orange Peel. As a note to anyone else who wants to brew this beer. This batch will clog your strainer! With all the hops and the huge pieces of orange peel, I had to stop and start the straining process twice. In future batches, I plan to use a colander and a mesh strainer for this batch so I can filter out the large chunks first. Either that or siphon it from the boil pot in to the fermenter so I can keep all the gunk in the pot. This batch smelled fantastic and it started bubblin’ in the fermenter in about 12hrs. Its batches like this that make me want a kegging set up so I can taste this beer in 3 weeks instead of 5.

I know most of you who home brew have some sort method to label your bottles. I’ve been using plan old masking tap and a sharpie to mark whats in each bottle. I didn’t like the “prohibition” feel that this method gave but I wasn’t exactly thrilled about printing out labels and then soaking them off once the beer had been enjoyed. I decided that a good compromise would be a permanent generic “Jensen Haus” label and the masking tape labels to note what and from when was in the bottles. I found these labels online and they are billed as “permanent”, dishwasher safe and laser printable. I order up a package and found that they print very well in the laser printer and that they are incredibly sticky and that the laser printing does not rub off. Even with a wet finger. I applied these labels to a case of 1L swing-top brown bottles last night. I ran them through the dishwasher this afternoon so I could bottle my batch of Oatmeal Stout and they survived the dishwasher excellently. In fact, during the stout bottling, I overfilled a couple of bottles and the spilled stout wiped right off the labels. So after a successful trial run, I then applied these labels to all my bottles. (they don’t work on the Growlers.) I took some pics and you can check them out on Flickr. (they should be the in “beer/brewing” photostream in the upper right.)

The Oatmeal Stout not only smelled fantastic, it tasted fantastic as well. Can’t see through it and it has a nice roastedness to it as a good hearty stout should. I hope I can hold out two weeks for this batch to carbonate.