So I don't even know where to begin. For all intents and purposes to anyone who is all geeked out about temps, and times, and all those things that matter to homebrewers....Just thank your lucky stars you were not here. I had not brewed in 4 years and never AG. I used to pull of these hip pocket brew sessions and I used to know what to do and when. This thing was just sillyness. I started by overdoing my strike temp and held at 170 before dumping in some cold water to bring the temp down. Too much cold water, mash dropped to 110. Three times I pulled about 1-3 gallons into a seperate kettle, btought to a boil and introduced it back into the mash. Finally on try three I was back up to 155. I did manage to get 60 minutes out of that. The sparge went ok. I fly sparged with 170 for about 30 minutes and got some unknown amount in the boil kettle. In the end the boil went well and I got about 5.5 gallons in the carboy after spilling about a gallon on my shoes because the fittings I thought were fine did not fit.
What did I learn?
-brewing is not like riding a bike
-All grain requires way more planning than extract
-I know have an understanding of how my system operates so I have a better feeling of where to bring my strike water
- start earlier - today i began at 3, that was way too late
- Plan better was the big lesson