Just finished my first AG batch

First off, this hobby is ridiculous. I have 6 batches under my belt solo, I used to brew with a buddy on his equipment. 2 of those batches were Mr Beer, the other 4 are two NB extract kits split into two sessions. So I decided I wanted to brew AG. I borrowed Yooper's Rogue Dead Guy Ale Clone recipie and tweaked it a bit. Mind you this is for a 2.5 gallon:

5lb Maris Otter
.75 Caramunich
1.75 Munich
.25 Crystal 40
Mash @157 (I missed... hit 159-160)
.5 Perle @ 60
.5 Perle @ 30
.125 Perle @ 5
.125 Saaz @ 5

I decided to use White Labs 0011. We'll see how that turns out. Anyway I did BIAB. As mentioned above I missed my mash temp by a couple degrees, hopefully it won't hurt too much. I would have done the smart thing and tossed in some ice or a frozen bottle, but allas the 1/8 inch of space I had at the top of my pot didn't leave much room for such frivolous nonsense. My pre-boil OG after I topped off was 1.055 or 1.057 (my notes are not with me). I calculated that out to about 65% effeciency. So from there on I hit everything just about perfectly. I had exactly 2.5 gallons after boil off. The SG was 1.064 rounded up (3 pts lower than expected). My cooler worked perfectly, and the fermentor is currently sitting my my wine fridge set to 65 degrees.

Lessons learned:
Get a bigger pot.
Get the LHBS to double grind my grain for BIAB
Don't let my 5 year old distract me while trying to hit my strike (right term?) temp
Get a bigger pot.
Get a bigger pot.... ok Amazon is sending me a bigger pot...

Congrats on the first AG batch Only 3 points off your expected OG is pretty darn good for your first run.

Haha, definitely a good idea on the bigger pot. Not having any room for mash temp control sounds like an upgrade was necessary

Of course, you ALWAYS need a bigger pot. I have 7.5 gallons now and am fixin to spring of a 15 gallon blichmann with sight glass, ball valve and thermometer. Did I hear you say full boil?

Don't worry too much about being 3 pts off on your gravity. On my first BIAB I ended up with too much wort so my gravity was about 10 pts low and the beer has turned out great!

I did learn from my error. I allowed too much for grain absorption since I squeezed the bag aggressively.

I will make an adjustment before my next BIAB brew.