Well, brewed the PM batch with Vienna + DME last Sunday. Mash was probably a little high, ranging from 156-158. Went with about 33 IBU, mostly from an ounce of Brewer's Gold at 60 mins, an ounce of Willamette at 15 mins, and 2 ounces of Spalt Select at 5 minutes. I had some trouble measuring the OG. I measured 1.053 after dilution, which is 0.011 low. Based on my measurement of the wort pre-boil it should have been closer to 1.060, maybe 1.058 at the lowest, so I suspect I hadn't mixed things up enough. Probably never know for sure though.
Pitched a decanted 2L starter of WLP007 and kept it around 60°, which is probably a bit cold for WLP007 from what I've been reading. Fortunately, I had made my starter around that temperature, so at least the yeast were trained for the cold a little bit. Nevertheless, it had a quick start (burping by 2 hours after pitch, big blowoff on Monday during the day). It had a flurry of activity but had slowed substantially by Wednesday. Temperatures in the garage rose, so it's been warming up since then, now it's at about 66 and I'll probably let it get up to 68ish if I can. It's still burping along happily...
Took a gravity sample / taste test today, 5 days after pitching. It's green, but it's going to be good. SG is about 1.018 (might have been 1.017). Still has a fairly sweet taste, with a rich and complex malt flavor. There's an earthy, almost gritty but not sharp bitterness to it, and a soft but pronounced grapefruit aftertaste that lingers on the palate. There is a tiny hint of an aroma that I think may be diacetyl, but it's barely there. Yeast-wise, it's very clean.
So, I'm going to give it at least another couple weeks in primary. I may go to secondary if I decide to start a mead with the fermenter it's in right now, otherwise I'll give it a bit longer on primary. I'm hoping it'll dry out a tiny bit more (though with a mash as high as I had, this may not be so likely). I'd also like the grapefruit to fade a bit, but maybe that's the effect of the late hops. In any case, I was a bit worried this would come out too similar to the ESB that I recently bottled. No more worries there, this one is also malty but quite different.