My first brew day without using MB products.... think I may have scorched malt a little, left valve open a bit while pouring wort into MBK, pissed wife off with the smell of hops, But did get 2.5 gallons in the MBK so far so good. learned a little.
What kind of malt did you use? If it's LME, for future reference, bring the water to a boil, then remove from heat, add the LME and stir until completely dissolved.
For both LME and DME, unless you're doing a full volume boil, you may want to use just a portion of the malt for the boil, then add the rest at flameout (or with no more than 5 minutes left in the boil). This approach reduces darkening, reduces the odds of scorching and improves bitterness extraction from the hops.