This is a Belgian beer that we brewed to try out and boy are we going to enjoy this beer.  It is golden like a MGD but with a distinct hoppy and yeasty banana fruit taste.  This is almost as good as the cream Ale we made a while back which will be coming back soon.  The pictures are for your enjoyment and wonderment. I was extremely surprised at the short brew and fermentation time and how smooth this beer tastes.  Hopefully I can set some aside and let it age a bit and then see how it tastes.  If not I will brew some more.  So this ones for You……me!!!!

Petite Saison d'ETE

This beer is hard to describe but the yeast is a special strain that is extremely fast in fermenting the wort.  Normally you ferment the wort for two weeks then bottle. Well we actually went 24 days before bottling!

The picture above is the Petite Saison D”Ete going through its first and only fermentation.  The beer as you can see from the picture in the glass is a golden color with a fruity and yeasty aroma.  The beer  has a distinct flavor that the French Saison strain of Yeast has.  Definitely try it you will like it.  If you like a summer beer with flavor and aroma you will love this beer.

Heating the Syrup so it will Pour.

This is usually the first step in brewing.  The main brew pot is outside and warming up 2.5 gallons of spring water, Giant Eagle Special water with no impurities. The extract comes in a plastic container that is thick and gooey.  By heating the extract in warm water the syrup becomes much easier to pour.  This usually takes about 20 min.

The only other step before this is if the recipe calls for grains to be smashed in a mesh bag we use a rolling pin and mash the grains.  These are then put in the pot of water and allowed to steep for 20 minutes before the water comes to a boil.

Adding the Extract

With the water starting to boil you add your extract and initial hops or grains depending on the recipe. You need to watch the kettle whenever you add anything as boil over can occur at anytime.

As the liquid which is now called wort is boiling you take the time to prepare any additions to the recipes.  You still need to watch the wort because it can boil over at anytime and create a mess to clean up and even put the flame out.

The wort now must cook for 1 hour and you can add a variety of grains and hops fruit extracts or even honey to your wort at specific times.  You add hops for flavor at the beginning of the boil and for aroma at the end of the boil. There are a large variety of hops to choose from and adding them at different times will change the taste and the character of the beer.  You have a endless variety of options from the hops to the time that they can be added.

These are the freeze dried hops that can add aroma to the beer and flavor.  These hops in ancient times enabled the brewers to ship their beer and the beer would not spoil. It also added distinctive flavors and aromas depending on the type of hops.  Some are more bitter than other and some have a strong aroma.  Giving you a endless variation in making beer. Between the time they are added and the amount along with type gives you a enormous amount of brewing lee way.

Straining the Wort before cooling.

Now the fun begins! When the timer goes off you need to strain the wort and cool it as fast as you can.  The quicker you can cool the wort the clearer the beer becomes.  We first strain out all of the hops or grains that were added to the wort.  We are usually making a 5 gallon batch and we have been boiling 2.5 gallons. We learned this from Alton Brown from the food channel, we will buy one sometimes two 7 pound bags of ice.  1 gallon of water is roughly seven pounds. We add the ice till we get to the 5 gallon mark on our pail.  We are constantly mixing and we are trying to get the temperature as close as we can to the pitching temperature of the yeast.  Mixing also adds oxygen to the wort so the yeast can feast!

The carboy now has been closed.

After a brisk shaking to make sure the wort has been aerated the temperature is taken and a reading that measures the specific gravity and the amount of sugar that is available for the yeast to eat and turn into alcohol, carbon dioxide and best of all BEER!!!!!!

This is the 1st or primary fermentation.  We will watch the little air locks and watch the yeast feast.  This bubbling and giving off of gas will continue for about two weeks.  At this time we will open up the bottle and take a reading for the specific gravity.  We then close it back up and wait another day to take another reading.  If this reading is the same as the previous day we then take the beer out of the carboy and place it in a cleaned and sanitized carboy for the secondary fermentation.  We are almost their.  We will now wait two more weeks and start taking readings again before bottling. Wait for the next post I will have pictures of the bottling process.

I am not a expert but I know what beers I like and what are so-so.  Some of my friends have differing taste but they usually enjoy whatever I or my sons brew.

This is a family affair and I and my four sons all enjoy pitching in and choosing and brewing beer.  I do have one son that his specialty is just the drinking part but someone has to do it!

This hobby has become part of what the family does as this spring we will planting 4 different hops and growing are own hops.  We will probably offer them to people when we harvest them. Later on that.  The hobby was started to try and get one of my sons to change his mind about joining the marines.  Well it didn’t work but we have become closer because of the brewing and we all enjoy.

From time to time you will see pictures of our brewing sessions and some of our final products.  Talk to you later…. Have a homebrew!!!