Northern Brewer's Saison du Vin

I'm doing Northern Brewer's Saison du Vin for my next batch. I've done a few extract brews so far (Belgian wit, American pale ale, and a Belgian strong dark), and am looking for something a little more unique. I stumbled across NB's Saison du Vin: http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/antithesis-saison-au-vin-extract-kit-w-steeping-grains.html

And it looks pretty interesting. They only have a few reviews posted, starting last fall, so I'm guessing it's a new kit.

Has anybody done an extract similar to this?

I sort of jumped the gun with ordering. Now I'm finding people saying Saisons like tighter temperature control during fermentation, with folks ramping up the temperature. I don't really have fermentation temperature control in my system yet, I just leave the fermenter in my bedroom (2nd floor, stays warmer) in the winter, or kitched (ground floor) in the summer. My bedroom stays ~68 F in the winter, although I could open my vent more to get more heat.

I went with the Danstar Belle Saison dry yeast

Some folks also recommend double pitching if using dry yeast, or building up a big starter of liquid yeast.

I'm wondering - should I hold off until the weather warms up (mid-atlantic region) to brew this one, or just go for it?

Rehydrate the yeast like the instructions on the yeast package say, you shouldn't need a starter. The belle saison yeast is really easy to use and I get like 90-95% attenuation out of it, so watch your OG, even 1.050 will ferment down to 1 and give you a 6% beer. Also this yeast really needs higher temps than normal. I do mine at 75F and have great results. Some people let this go way higher than that. I think with this yeast, you really only care about getting it warm enough. 68F is a little low. Maybe set your fermenter on the heat vent? Or wait for warmer weather. You only need at minimum maybe 72F ambient air temp to get a good beer out of it. I love this yeast.

Monty

Well, I guess I should followup on this. I decided to wait for warmer weather to brew this beer.

I brewed on 6/15, bottled on 7/13, and drank my first bottle of it yesterday, 7/27.

It's the best beer I've made so far, by a wide margin, and my 6th beer so far. It's really incredible. The only thing I changed from the recipe was to do half of the 6lbs of LME at 60 minutes, and half of it at 30 minutes. I didn't double the yeast, but did rehydrate it per the instructions.

Fermentation temperature fluctuated from about 72-80F. I just left it sitting in my 2nd floor bedroom during the summer here in MD.