First All-grain

Hello

This being my first all grain endeavor I'm coming to you guys for some help. I need to know the temperature of my strike water and to verify my strike water volume.

Grain Bill: (Total 6 lbs)
4lb - english otter pale malt
1.5 lb - Flaked oats
.5 lb - Roasted barley

So using the 2:1 ratio i would need 12 quarts of water for my initial strike volume. After I'm done with this step what should my sparge volume be to yield a 5 gallon batch after the 60 minute boil is complete? 4.5 gallons? I'm not sure how to calculate this number.

Thanks for all the help

I use this: http://www.brew365.com/mash_sparge_water_calculator.php

Take a look at it and see if it helps. There are others. You may have questions.

using that website i got:

Total volume of water 8.15 gal
mash volume 2 gal
sparge volume 6.15 gal
strike temp of 164

Does this sound correct?

It does. You're on your way.

One thing-- your beer will be very low alcohol. I typically get around 75% efficiency, and use a minimum of 8 pounds of base malt for 5 gallons to get around the 1.048 OG point. I'd estimate yours to come in around 3-3.5%.

My goal was to use a cheap recipe so if i screw it up it won't matter that much to me. I want to get the feel for all grain procedure before making any big beers. Thanks pilgarlic.

Using that strike temp put me way under the 154 degree mashing temp, it was around 140 degrees. I preheated the MLT for around 10 minutes with boiling water. What might cause this to happen?

grain temp maybe?

you really have to stir the **** out of it
and move the thermometer around in the mash to
get a good temp.

So my second attempt doing all grain i thought went much better but my OG was 1.041 and was suppose to be at 1.054. It looked like I hit the right mash temp of a little above 150 but im starting to think I may need a new thermometer.

The grain bill was 10.75 lbs and I added 3.6 gal at 165 to get to the mash temp to 152. I added the grain slowly to the water while stirring to reduce clumping. After 5-10 minutes of stirring i started the 60 minute countdown. After that I slowly lautered the beer around 1/4 open with the valve. Then I added sparge water at 180 to get the temp around 170 maybe a little lower and stirred that for a few minutes. After 10 minutes of that, I lautered again at 1/4 open of the valve. Then i boiled.

Any suggestions to hit the right OG? Is my brewing somewhat correct?