La Petite Orange Extract Kit w/ Specialty Grains

I just wanted to share- this was by far the best home brew I have ever made. I had a good chinook IPA about a year back but the La Petite Orange Extract Kit w/ Specialty Grains was awsome. I did add some orange rinds to the secondary and man did it come thru in the finished product.

IT was so good I am not going to get another kit and do it again and I might let it age in the 2ndary for even longer this time around.

That brew is probably my favorite Northern Brewer kit beer. Absolutely fabulous taste. I do it with the alternate notes with the added coriander and orange peel. It is always a hit every time I serve it.

I generally do all grain but I was in a rush and my fiance wanted a belgian… It’s a solid beer. I will suggest though, Northeastern Abbey from the yeast bay worked VERY well( I had it on hand) I love their yeast.

http://www.theyeastbay.com/brewers-yeast-products/northeastern-abbey

Just ordered this kit today. Instead of pitching the abbey yeast, I’m going to pitch a packet of Belle Saison dry yeast that I need to use before it’s past its prime. Not sure what I’ll end up creating. An amber saison? An abbey saison? A total disaster? The greatest beer ever? :cheers:

let us know how it turns out Grizz!!! It should be an interesting flavor profile.

Namaste!!! :cheers:

Will do! Looking at the ingredient list for the kit, it was pretty similar to the last saison I made, other than the darker, more “caramelly”, Belgian grains. I chatted with someone at NB before ordering and they seemed to think it would make a pretty good brew, so I took advantage of the 20% off promotion and took the plunge. Half the fun of homebrewing is experimenting!

As an update, my La Petite Orange Saison is just about ready for bottling. I’ll cold crash it later this week and probably bottle next week sometime. I ended up adding the zest of two blood oranges at the end of the boil but skipped the coriander. I put the carboy in our boiler room, where it was in the mid to high 70s. The Belle Saison yeast took it down to 1.006 in no time at all, which puts it at about 6% ABV. The gravity sample tasted great…definitely get some of the orange flavor/aroma and a bit of the saison funkiness. I’ve never had a regular La Petite Orange, so I can’t really compare, but this one’s shaping up to be pretty good.

This was the kit that streets my love affair with saisons… Very tasty.

The Danstar Belle saison yeast is absolutely fabulous. I’ve had Nothing but great results with it and I’ve used it for nearly every one of my brews. It always takes it down to the 1005 range and gives that great funky vibe.

So, another update. I brewed this kit with the Belle Saison yeast and the zest of two blood oranges at flameout, as described above. Bottled it and let it sit for 5 weeks before taking it to a local brewfest this past weekend. This was the first time I had ever entered any of my beer into a competition of any kind. Granted, this wasn’t a BJCP event, but they had judges and also a peoples’ choice category. Very much to my surprise, this beer, which I called Blood Moon, took 1st place Peoples’ Choice Homebrew and 1st Place Peoples’ Choice Overall (which means the common folk not only thought it was the best homebrew, but also preferred it to the commercial brews that were on hand). I was shocked. I thought it was a good beer, but I didn’t even think it was the best beer of the three I brought…I actually prefer my Fresh Squeezed IPA clone (which took 2nd Place Judges’ Choice Homebrew). But, once one or two people tried the Blood Moon and started telling their friends, I suddenly had a steady stream of folks coming to my table to try it. I ended up pouring twice as much of the Blood Moon as the other two brews I had on hand. I’ll definitely be keeping this one on hand! And I’m not sure I’ll ever brew this kit with anything other than the Belle Saison yeast.

EDIT: Oh, and I should mention that of the three brews I brought to the brewfest, one was an all-grain, one was a partial mash, and one was an extract kit. It was the extract kit that took home the most hardware.

I was placing an order today and decided to include this kit simply based on this thread and reviews.

For those who have made this before, what would you say is the best way to include the extra orange to the brew. Zest, whole peels? When is the best time to add it from your experience?

[quote=“GRIZFAN20”]I was placing an order today and decided to include this kit simply based on this thread and reviews.

For those who have made this before, what would you say is the best way to include the extra orange to the brew. Zest, whole peels? When is the best time to add it from your experience?[/quote]

For mine - and note I used the belgian yeast not the Sasion but I might try that next time. But I added the rinds of two small oranges when I moved the beer to the secondary. I will say this- the type of orange used seems to have a big effect. I forget what I used the first time around - it was a smaller orange but it really imparted an orange sent and flavor to the beer. The second time around I uses the normal store oranges and they did not impart as much scent of flavor.

The way I did it was I made a solution of acid mix (sanitizer) and I let the orange hang out in that solution for about 15mins before I then got the rinds.