GOOD GRAV(it)Y!!

Last night was another brew session. This would be my first time using a lager yeast (a Bock actually, but they are part of the lager yeast family). I have had the kit for a few weeks and had a fermenter available, but have been reading up on lager yeast before attempting it. It was a Mailbock kit from Austin Homebrew Supply.

I made up a yeast starter a few days ago. However, I had not seen any activity in the starter so was unsure if it did any good. One way to find out, I suppose.

I got everything cleaned up and sanitized and began boiling water. This was a partial boil so I didn't need my 7.5 gallon pot this round. I still do the dual pot thing though -- steep in one and get water up to boiling in the other to cut down time in the kitchen.

I had just about gotten my water to steeping temperature when, of course, my cell phone rang. It was a buddy whose call I had been waiting on so went ahead and cut off the burners and carried on the conversation.

After getting off the phone, I got the water back up to steeping temperature again and got back to brewing. Once steeped I added the grain tea to the boiling water and let it resume a good rolling boil before adding the extract. There was only one hops addition and it was for 60 minutes, so I was basically done for 45 minutes and got to sit down a bit for this one.

After it had boiled 45 minutes, I added the Irish Moss and some yeast nutrient. I wanted to make *sure* that there was enough food for the yeast to feed upon since it would be at lagering temperatures.

I got the wort into an ice bath and quickly brought the 3 gallons of water down to 60* which the beer would ferment at 45*, so it was close. The ferment chamber will get it down to that in short order.

For whatever reason, when I took my gravity sample I took it prior to adding the two top off gallons. It was the first time I had used my refractometer. I have been anxious to get away from the hydrometer, especially since the last few readings I have taken with it were off.

Anyway, so my sample reads 1.030 but it's supposed to be 1.059. WTF?!? UNREAL!

Bah! I shook it up, pitched my yeast, and set it in the ferment chamber. Then, *this* morning it hit me! I took the reading too early. So I had the bright idea of taking another reading this morning. It read 1.050.

Closer, but I then noticed that the yeast had already started doing their thing, so the reading still isn't right. Meh! it was probably 1.059 since extract is hard to screw up the gravity unless you have really bad process, which I don't believe I do.

It just pains me, I got the refractometer with the idea of getting accurate readings and I screw up the first two times I attempt to use it. Yeesh! third time a charm?