Brewing Notes, Steam Schwarzbier (Sat 15mar)

I decided to try and brew a Schwarzbier because it is one of my favorite kinds of beer. Since real lagering is out of the question given my location and lack of extra fridge/freezer, I decided to try it with the Cali/San-Fran type lager yeast that should still make a clean malty lager at the temps that are closer to what I can maintain in my house. So while it won't be exactly authentic, hopefully it will be delicious:

The recipes as followed, from a NB kit:


6.0 lbs. Munich LME (2 lbs. after steeping grains, 4 lbs. @ 20 minutes)
1.0 lbs. Muntons Dark DME (~ .25 for starter,~ .75 after steeping grains)
0.5 lbs. Durst Dark Crystal Malt
0.5 lbs. Dingemans Debittered Black Malt
1.0 oz. Argentina Cascade, 3.2% AA (60 minutes)
1.0 oz. Argentina Cascade, 3.2% AA (30 minutes)
Wyeast California Lager yeast, .75 liter starter made 20 hours in advance

Couple of notes:

1 - I tried the extract late method to try and increase my hop utilization. It took about 15 minutes to bring it back to boil (after remainder of LME added) so I don't know how that affects things, my electric stove just can't crank much heat even near high. I didn't count this time as part of my boil time.

2 - I made a starter for the first time by boiling 1/2 cup dark DME and ~.75 liters of water (jar couldn't hold much more). This got going for about 18-20 hours before pitching, I would've pitched sooner, but I wasn't done till then.

3 - I only boiled for 5 minutes prior to adding hops. I came out low on gravity, maybe from not boiling off as much water as usual.

OG turned out @ ~1.045. It said it was supposed to come out around 1.052, but I guess I didn't boil as much water off as normal.

I pitched a .75L starter @ 65F into 68F wort. This is supposedly better than pitching a warmer starter into a cooler wort as it supposedly stimulates yeast activity, according to Mr. Malty (although such a small change as in this case probably doesn't make too much difference).