My alarm went off at 6:30 this morning. Normally on a Saturday, that would meen I was a dumbass and forgot to turn my alarm off the night before. But not today. Today was a brew day. I don't normally brew a lot this time of year, and I certianly did not plan on it being 100+ when I decided to schedule a brew day today, but that's the way the ball bounces. I decided I needed an early start. Fortunately, my brother-in-law Paul came over to help, which was invaluable, particularly for clean-up. We doughed in at 8:00 and took the mash trough a 4 step, direct fire mashing schedule (125 °F, 146 °F, 156 °F, and 168 °F) with a two step batch sparge. After a 75 min boil, were pumping wort into the carboys (11 gallons of black goodness!) at a little after noon. Not bad in terms of time spent, and thankfully it really didn't get too hot until the last hour or so (most of which we spent inside while the wort boiled). The one catch to doing a lager and pitching cold is that my plate chilled can't handle getting the wort down to 50 °F, so I have to stick my carboys in an ice bath for a bit to get them down to pitching temp. No bid deal.
Assuming to catastrophies, there will be a keg of schwartzbier for the 35th aniversary party in October. I hope you all enjoy it. For me, I think I'm done brewing until it cools down. Then maybe a bock...
