Ok, didn't get this done on Sunday as planned, but just finished up tonight. Couldn't take pictures as I was a little nervous about keeping everything as planned, right temps, etc. w/ my first AG. Aside from a few minor hiccups, it didn't go all that bad...3-4 weeks time will tell I guess.
Friend and fellow (much better) brewer let me borrow his Blichmann Boilermaker, that I used as my MT, mostly b/c it has the thermometer built in. This was something that I thought was good, but turned out to mess w/ my head the entire time. I luckily had a floating thermometer also, because I never ONCE got even close to the same readings...and didn't know which one to trust. So, who knows if my mash was too high/low. I tended to trust the floating thermometer, but even that seemed off sometimes.
Once I was done mashing/sparging, I got the boil going (and without a sight glass on my BK, had what I thought was approx 6 gallons in the BK). Figuring I'd take a break for dinner while boiling, and waiting for next hop addition, I put a cover on the BK, slightly off centered but just to keep crap out while I went inside...MISTAKE...BIG TIME. Came out after dinner to find the batch bubbling over, and hops ALL OVER the inside of the BK. Needless to say, I was PISSED!! But whatever, I pressed on.
Second mishap, didn't have enough hop bags, so I decided to take a long piece of SS tubing that I have and use it to hold the hop bag from the 5 min addition until the 1 minute. Worked fine until I filled the bag w/ the 1 min, went to put it back and that piece of SS tubing was DAMN HOT!! Both fell in BK, not so much of a big deal, but the point of the hop bags went out the window...LOL.
So, other than that, I chilled w/ my IC to about 90 until my son turned the hose off and I didn't feel like running back/forth again, and racked to primary...will pitch in the AM, once I know it's down to room temp (approx 65-68 normally).
The only thing I'm wondering now, is that when I was inside eating, and the BK was boiling over, I must've lost a TON of wort...unless I just didn't start with as much as I thought...because I only got about 4.5 gallons of finished product. Kind of bummed, but have another recipe to try out either this weekend or next.
Thoughts?? Suggestions HIGHLY welcomed...