Summer brewing has begun and although it has taken until the end of July to kick it off, the brew day went smoothly so any fear of being rusty were unfounded.

To help me ease back into it, I bought a kit from Midwest Supplies. We did a review of one last year and the beer I brewed from it won an award in competition.

The kit was shipped to me unmilled and all the grains came mixed together in one big bag. The trade off of not being able to know for sure the measurements for each of the grains was the ease in which one bag’s contents can be poured into the top of the mill’s hopper.

I had a hankering for a saison but I didn’t feel like thinking about putting an ingredient list together. Buying the kit saved me time in that respect and shopping online. I clicked on one button and the whole thing was in my cart.

The recipe had 3 different grains, 3 hop additions, and some special ingredients like bitter orange peel, grains of paradise, whole coriander, and Belgium candi sugar.

I almost didn’t add the spices, but then I decided I was all in on the recipe. I thought to myself that if I was going to brew it, I might as well brew it as it was intended.

The only variation was the yeast choice. I went with the dry strain (Lallemand Belle Saison) since Mike had luck with it last year, which I don’t think was one of the choices when I bought the kit. With two packets and proofing it as instructed on the packet, I felt like I had a good plan for the fermentation.

The yeast took off pretty quickly. I started seeing signs of fermentation after just 3 hours after I pitched.

The only thing that didn’t measure up was the starting gravity. The beer is supposed to be a lawnmower version of a saison but my gravity reading was at 1.060 when I racked the wort to the Better Bottle. I thought the kit’s target range was 1.052-1.055, but I looked online and it tops out at 1.059. Meh, I think it will be ok.

Saison Kit Brew Day

Brew On!