Midwest Supplies’ Lemon Coriander Weiss
For our first in our homebrew kit reviews series, we’ve selected Midwest Supplies’ Lemon Coriander Weiss. This was my first time brewing from a Midwest kit and I’ll walk you through the process, from ordering to tasting. View the instruction sheet. (PDF)
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Phase One: Order
Click here to access the product page. To match our recipe, add the White Labs yeast vial, get your grains pre-crushed and place your order. You’ll receive your box in a few days, well packaged and ready to go. Midwest throws in corn sugar for priming, a nice touch.
Phase Two: Brew Day
The instructions are well documented; but a bit on the cluttered side compared to other vendors we’ve used. All of the pertinent information is there, though, so no worries. The procedure is pretty standard. Just take your time and walk through the steps of steeping your grains, boiling the extract and adding the hops and coriander. Cool the wort, add to your primary, agitate and add yeast. Then store in a cool, quiet and dark place.
Phase Three: Fermentation
That White Labs yeast is serious stuff! In less than 24 hours, I had a full-on blow-out, with krauzen all up in the airlock. I affixed a blow-off tube and waited a day for it to settle down. After re-attaching the airlock (48 hours in) the krauzen crept up again, forcing me to re-apply the blow-off tube for the rest of the primary fermentation. That was happy yeast!
After primary settled down (9 days total) I moved it to the secondary. Here, the recipe calls for microwaving lemon zest and adding it to the secondary. Using a secondary gets us clearer beer and allows the fruit taste to set in prior to bottling without fighting with the extra yeast.
Phase Four: Bottling
After another 10 days in the secondary, I bottled the batch, yielding a little more than 40 bottles. This was my first time using corn sugar as the priming agent as I typically use the table sugar I have on hand. No big surprises here. Other than a small spill, it was a very easy session despite bottling solo. I gave the bottles a full two weeks to carbonate.
Scroll beneath the slideshow for Phase Five: Taste!
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- Kit Contents: Even includes the coriander!
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- Bagged Hop Pellets
Phase Five: Taste
Not bad! It’s a little malt-heavy; but the coriander and lemon are in perfect proportion. In early tastings, there was an explicit sourness that mellowed with another two weeks in the bottle. It’s an easy-to-drink spring/summertime beer. I named my batch Lemmon-McCartney. You can view the check-ins at Untappd. It’s currently averaging a 3.5/5, which seems about right.
