Final boil volume...

Well tackled my first all grain a week ago tommorow, and the only issue was my final boil volume once cooled and in fermenter was 4 gallons. From this weeks reading I have come to the conclusion that I didn't use enough sparge water. I don't believe that I boiled it too hard, and I should have realized that when I had sparge water to dump out, something was amiss. I believe that I was worried because the running started looking really clear and I feared I was ruining the beer. Well thanks to HBT, my next "first" AG batch should be considerably better and far as procedure goes.
BTW, it was BM's Cent. Blonde, eff. was about 55-60% and yeasties took off like crazy.

I haven't ever had to worry about over sparging. Unless you are getting extremely high efficiency 90's+ then I would consider this a non issue.

Just sparge until you have the preboil volume you need. For me this is about 8 gallons pre-boil for a 5 gallon batch. This will vary depending on your burner, pot, etc.