strike water temp possibly wrong! help

My first all grain and the store told me to make sure my strike water was 155 degrees. I fiddled with this for at least an hour trying to get it right, after i add the grain its way lower, 120 is this ok?

Do I drain this in 1 hour and then add the sparge? or do i add the sparge to the whole thing and then let her drain? Thanks

How many pounds of grain and how much water? Start heating up a gallon of water to bring to boil. Post your grain and water volume and I'll do a calculation for you.

iaefebs said:

How many pounds of grain and how much water? Start heating up a gallon of water to bring to boil. Post your grain and water volume and I'll do a calculation for you.

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9lbs 5 oz grain, my strike water was 12 quarts, I got it to 155 it dropped to 120, but after sitting 30 min it was at 152, so I am cool on that part, how much sparge, Im boiling 4 gallons now.

Glad it worked out for you. 152° is OK for 1st attempt.

Are you confusing your mash temp (155 sounds about right) with your strike temp ( should be higher than mash temp to account for losses due to grain/mash tun/ambient around 170)? Check out some free software like brewers friend or beer smith free trial which will calculate mash infusion water temps based on your system parameters.
Your sparge volume is based on your boil size (6.5 for a 5 gal batch) so if you mash with 3 gallons (1.5 quarts per pound grain) you will need to sparge with 4 gallons to account for losses due to grain absorption. Sparge with two 2 gallon additions and don't forget to vorlauf.
What are you using for a mash tun?
My last advice would be to search about BIAB on HBT. It helped me tremendously with jumping to all grain.
Good luck