Due to the apparent great popularity of this beer, I picked it for my first all grain brew. Overall I think it went mostly OK, but I had these issues:
My main boiling kettle could only handle about 5 gallons, so I boiled the remaining 1.5 or so on the stove at the same time in a separate pot. I added the first hops to the main kettle, and tossed a few into the smaller one. By the second hops addition, I had boiled off enough to put it all in the big kettle.
Ended up with only 4.5 gallons in the fermenter when all was said and done. I boiled outside and it was mid 40's today, but 2 gal of loss seemed like a lot. Left a little in the kettle when I poured it out, but it was mostly trub. Had an OG of about 1.045 (recipe calls for 1.051).
I'm not worried about the volume, or gravity too much, but is there something I should watch for when fermenting and bottling due to the deviations?
Oh yeah, I hit my mash temps right on, only lost 1 degree during the hour mash, and hit the sparge temps too. Online calculators telling me my brewhouse efficiency was about 60%.