First Batch over 1 Gallon and OG is off

Sad face.

I brewed my first 2.5 gallon batch today and everything went well, mostly. It took forever to boil the water on my stove and then slightly longer than forever to cool it down (need to buy that 2nd bag of ice next time).

The big thing that stands out after the brew day is, my OG is 1.044 rather than the 1.055 it was supposed to be. I did decrease the amount of coffee malt grain - cut it in half, but I think the main culprit is I mis-measured the initial water addition and didn't put enough extract in. I lost a lot to boil off (more than expected), but I also don't think I measured the LME accurately. That stuff is a major pain to divide up (used half of a container of 2 different LMEs).

We'll see how it turns out. It'll still probably taste ok, but not nearly as strong as I was going for.

DME is easier to deal with. If you're going to split extracts up like that I'd get a cheap scale in the 1-5 lb capacity range and use that. I doubt your eyeballs have been calibrated ell enough for that sort of thing.