2nd AG attempt - Sophomore slump?

Friends:

As near perfect as my first AG attempt was (a SNPA clone that I'm one day away from bottling), my second attempt, a american honey brown ale, was full of adventure!

First, an original recipe, a 6-gallon batch...

10# British 2-row pale
1# Crystal 60L
12 oz. Cara-Pils/Dextrine
4 oz. Chocolate Malt
4 oz. Victory Malt
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1 oz. Northern Brewer (60 min)
1 oz. Cascade (30 min)
.5 oz. Amarillo Gold (1 min)
.5 oz. Cascade (1 min)
1# Granulated Honey mixed at flame-out
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Wyeast 1056 - California Ale yeast

Projected efficiency - 75%
Projected gravity - 1.060
Estimated color - 15.7 SRM
Bitterness - 40 IBU
Projected alcohol - 6.0

I went into it from an experimental point of view, as I'd like to see personally the influence of the malt vs. the hops. Will the hop bitterness work too much against the malt? Will there be a strong "nutty" presence? Will the honey give a hint of taste or perhaps be a defining characteristic? Will the hop aroma eventually give way to a good, malty finish?

Based on the recipe, what do you think?

As far as execution, wow, how different from my first AG! I tried for a 152F mash with 1.5 quarts water/# of grain. However, I somehow overshot my mash-in by 6F and instead of actually measuring out my water addition to give 152F, I just added an extra 1.5 gallons to yield a 2 quarts water/grain ratio. What a dumb arse! That undershot me to 146-148F (note to self - it seems more difficult to measure temperature accurately with so much water) and so I had to pull off water twice to heat-up my mash - not a decoction, as it was pretty much mostly water at this point, but still a big pain! I did get myself back up to 152F and rested there for 30 minutes. But because I was already at 6 gallons, I couldn't do a mash-out...though I think that's somewhat overrated anyway since I had no problem with the batch sparge (48 qt. Igloo Ice-cube with SS braid). Drained off 3.5 gallons of first runnings and added 4 gallons of sparge water at 152F to yield 7.5 gallons of pre-boil wort at 1.044 pre-boil gravity.

I did a 60 minute boil after the hot break, but really couldn't keep a boil established because my new Cajun banjo burner setup lost some output. It smoked through my first AG attempt, but this time I was forced to cover the boil pot for portions of the boil to keep it rolling, which did cause a slight boil over (.25 gallons of volume loss) after the 30 min. Cascade addition.

Any guesses on what causes lesser through put on the propane? Can it clog up someway?

Anyhow, after all the excitement, I did finish with 6.2 gallons of wort at 1.056 points. Should have boiled down to 6 gallons since that would have gotten me a little closer to 1.060, but I was short on time.

From there, it was smooth. Mixed in the honey addition at flame-out (I did measure my final OG after this honey addition). The DIY CFC cooled down like a champ, to the 82F mark of my ambient water temp within 10 minutes. Pitched at that temp (no starter) and immediately put into my new/free Ranco ETC-110000 controlled refrigerator set for 62F. I'll set for 14 days on primary and will decide then if I want to do a 3 day dryhop in secondary with either Amarillo or Cascade...but I'll decide that then.

Anyway, thought you'd like to hear about the experience! Anything you'd change about the recipe or comments you have would be greatly appreciated!

I've only done one AG batch, so I can't comment on most of this.

However, for your burner - do not open the propane tank all the way; 1/4 - 1/2 turn to open will give you all the gas you need. If you open it too wide, your regulator will restrict the flow, resulting in lower than normal output and heat. I learned this the hard way on a gas grill with lots of people waiting for their food.