Dark Embrace

Brewed 24 January, 2026

Mashed in at 0745-ish @148F, 7.5 gallons of water. reduced to 45% power.
Started recirculation immediately.
got pH from about 8minutes in, 5.50, added a small handful of acid.
20m in, raised temp to 152.
at 1 hour: 1.042
at 2 hours: 1.051
at 2.5 hours 1.053
going to add the dark malts in a few minutes.

Added dark malts for 20m, raised temp to 169. Lifted the basket, vorlauf for 5 minutes, then straight into the sparge. Sparge water set to 181F. Sparged 15 seconds at a time until the draining slowed. Repeated until close to target volume, waited and topped off to 8.25 gallons.
1.053. Again, just like with the 2026 Roggenbier, lost absolutely nothing in the sparge... Added a cup of water, stirred, measured, got 1.048-ish Close enough, moved to the boil

Boil finished without incident, moved into the whirlpool, got a gravity reading from the refractometer showing about 1.062, which should translate to about 1.059 on the tilt.

Got a solid 6-ish gallons of wort into the fermenter.
The Tilt red had other plans. I cleaned it from the previous brew and put it in tap water, reading .980 consistently. tested the other tilt and it was correct. did the calibration on it.

When dropped into the freshly brewed beer, it showed 1.073 ! ! !
I got the old school hydrometer and got 1.060 at about 64F. it's calibrated to 60F. I adjusted the tilt reading to 1.060.
Added the 1728 Yeast culture, which was warmed up during the boil. Fermentation started almost immediately. I dropped the fermenter temp to ~60F.

Brew day done by 16:00, including the cleaning.

• Fermentation began almost immediately after pitching the yeast. Dropped temp to 57, then 55.
  From 1.060, by 11:00 PM it was 1.052.
  01/25/2026: AM 1.029
  
• Added 3 ounces each cascade & cashmere hops.
  
  Tilt is reading low, but it seems that the fermentation halted around 1.015 - sending to cold crash and hoping for the best.
  The yeast took off like a rocket and kept going fast until it just stopped. about late on 01/26/2026 it was 'finished'.
  raised temp, roused the kettle several times, that was it. Lowered temp, by steps into the high 50's, another overnight and no activity, so cold crashed.
  
  checked via hydrometer and it looks like 1.014-1.015. kegged on 02/01/2026
  
  first sample: not sweet from the high FG, but there is a bit more roast than I expected. It took a while for the yeast and hop material to flucculate out, so will let this lager a bit.
  
  This yeast had 6 pitches on it including this one, and it took off like gangbusters, but did not attenuate to the expected 1.013. Close, but it appears the attenuation is trailing off at 6 pitches. This, plus the 6 ounces of hops convinced me to stop pitching at 6 for this batch.