Wat.

Update 9-4 - Kegged. Cleared the keg with CO2, racked, set seals, put in fridge at 40F with 10psi. Also, very tasty, with a nice aroma.
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Update 8/28 - Racked to secondary. 1.5oz Willamette added. Tastes great. Will keg in a few days.
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I brewed up a batch of St. Rogue Red Ale clone last night. I made a bittering hop substitution since the shop was out of Chinook. An ounce of Magnum gave me a slightly higher AAU than the recipe called for. That in combination with the faster evaporation rate than expected led me to do a 75 minute boil instead of 90. The problem, though, is that my gravity came out 10 points shy. TEN! Even more irritating is that the hydrometer reading actually dropped between lauter and flame out. So my initial mash gravity reading of 1.043 (which would be perfect!), was probably high due to stratification in the collection vessel (despite my efforts to stir it around). This means that my overall efficiency is low...back to the books, eh?

Batch #19
St. Rogue (with substitutions)
--7 lbs 2-Row American Pale Ale Malt (RAHR)
--1 lb Dark Munich (recipe calls for "Munich", but this smelled tastier)
--1 lb Crystal 15L
--1.25 lbs Crystal 40L
--1 lb Crystal 75L
--1 oz Magnum 13.1% AA (75min)*
--1 oz Centennial 10.4% AA (2min + whirlpool)*
--Whirlfloc (15min)
--White Labs WLP001 California Ale Yeast (1L starter)
OG: 1.040 [target 1.052 >:( ]
FG: 1.010
ABV: 4%
Calc. IBU: 45ish

*Recipe calls for ~ 10AAU Magnum for 90 minutes, and ~ 10AAU Cent. in whirlpool or hopback

Mashed grains for 60 minutes at 155F. Sparged with water at 168-170, extracting 6.5gal. The recipe calls for 6 gallons wort + 0.5 gallons water. I thought that was stupid.

At flame out, I removed the bittering hops, gave the wort a whirl with the Centennial. Chilled to about 70, and pitched just the slurry from my starter. Lag time of more than 3 but fewer than 10 hours (I sleep sometimes). I'll likely secondary with the leftover Willamette from the pumpkin brew to give it some more hop aroma.