Batch 8: Steamboat California Common Beer: Brewing Day

Here's the program:

1. Boil 4 gallons of water the day before, and set aside to cool overnight.
2. Steep 0.5 lb. crystal 40L malt 3 gallons of water at 160º ±10º for 30 minutes.
3. Add 3.3 lb. of pale LME, and stir till dissolved.
4. Bring to boil until break (approx. 20 minutes).
5. Hop.
1. 1.5 oz. East Kent Goldings hops T-60 minutes.
2. 0.5 oz. East Kent Goldings hops T-15 minutes.
6. Rehydrate the yeast (PDF).
1. Boil at least 4 oz. of water for five minutes, and let it cool to 73° ±6°F.
2. Sprinkle in the contents of the Saflager S-23 lager yeast sachet, and let it rest for about 20 minutes.*
3. Stir gently for 30 minutes. 
7. Add 4.6 oz. maltodextrin powder.
8. Add 3.3 lb. of pale LME at knockout, and let stand for 10 minutes.
9. Chill wort with ice bath and soda bottles to below 70º.
10. Add wort to pail, and top off with cooled boiled water to just over 5 gallon-mark (or approx. 3 inches from top of pail).
11. Measure original gravity.
12. Pitch the yeast.
13. Aerate the wort by pouring back and forth between sanitized pails.
14. Siphon into 6.5 gallon carboy primary fermenter, and affix airlock.
15. Let ferment for two weeks in swamp cooler at 60º ±6º.

The original gravity ended up being only 1.010 which just can't be right. It should be closer to 1.049. Fermentation was up and running the morning after pitching.

* - I accidentally dropped and spilled the dried yeast so I had to wait until the following day to buy, rehydrate, and pitch the yeast. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that the unpitched wort didn't encourage any odd bug growth over night.