Comrade Marc Bernard and I brewed today. We had a little excitement when the manifold in the mash tun got twisted out of shape, but we persevered and have great tasting wort in our fermenters.

This recipe started out as a Zywiec Porter clone, taken from the Beer Captured book. It turned into our own unique whatever-it-is after we made ingredient substitutions due to lack of malt selection at DeFalco's. I've never used American pilsner malt before, but we got good extraction, so I'll keep my hopes up.

11 gallons
OG: 1.092

Grains:

33.00 lb Pilsner (American)...wanted German, but they were out
1.75 lb Caravienne Malt
1.00 lb Caramunich Malt
1.00 lb Chocolate Malt
0.50 lb Carafa II...wanted black patent, but they were out!
5.25 oz Mt. Hood [5.00 %] (60 min)
0.50 oz Saaz [4.00 %] (10 min)
German Lager (White Labs #WLP830)

Marc used Wyeast Munich Lager yeast (#2308), which was called for in the book's recipe. I had a coupon for free yeast from White Labs, so I used their #830, German Lager.

Mash:

45 mins @ 145°
45 mins @ 153°
15 mins @ 168°

Mine was at 1.050 yesterday. I transferred to the secondary and am continuing the fermentation at 55°.

When you say "Rouse the yeast", what technique do you employ?

-Marc

Six days later, SG is 1.034. OG was 1.092, so that's 61% apparent attenuation. If it makes it to this yeast's average AA (76.5%), it should end about 1.020 and 9.4% ABV.

Yeast re-roused. I might ought to do this more often than once every blue moon or so.

Come on, boys. Get 'er done!