Jensen Haus Home Brewing

I apologize for the sudden flurry of updates. I’d saved a bunch of posts and forgotten and to publish them. Its been a crazy busy summer so far and I hope I can keep this site better updated.

With the arrival of Summer, it marks the arrival of the “Summer Beer”. Usually brewed with Wheat and assorted citrus flavors, these beers are awesome for hot weather and compliment a BBQ any time. As a Home Brewer, I love this time of year. Summer Beer is one of the easiest and most satisfying of all the things I’ve done as a home brewer. It doesn’t require a lengthy fermentation, its supposed to be cloudy and lends it self to “session” consumption. You and gaggle of fellow beer geeks can sit on camp chairs in the garage on a summer night and drain a 5 gallon keg (Craig, JB, Chris and I did just such a thing). This is exactly what I was hoping for when I tinkered with an extract kit from Midwest. Its called “Bavarian Wheat” and its a very basic recipe. On its own, this batch was pretty unremarkable but once I got done with it, it was amazing. After fermentation, I reconstituted some Minute Maid Lemonade and combined the beer and lemonade in the keg. After carbonating and settling for a few days, this stuff would give Leines Shandy a run for its money. Going to make another batch of this for Nordic Fest.

After 3 years of giving my wife crap about the Kingswood Rummage sales, I pilfered a few sales this year for some Home Brew gear and came out like a thief. Picked up a perfect sized fridge for kegging and promptly turned it in to a keggerator. I bought a Fridge Conversion Kit from Midwest and a two keg kit with a 2 valve regulator and CO2 tank. I should hopefully get some pics up on Flickr soon. At another sale, I picked up a 7.5 gallon turkey fryer pot and propane burner for $40. Its so nice to be able to boil an entire 5 gallons. Its a pain to try and cool the wort down this way though. Think I might have to invest in a wort chiller. This poses a slight issue come winter time as my outdoor water faucet is off limits that time year and I have a weird sink faucet and can’t use the sink adapters.