Well, the brewday went pretty well. I was nearly dead on with my preboil and final gravities, which was pretty much pure luck considering I had no idea what my efficiency would be. I guess it is around 72%, which I can definately live with. The only problem I had was that my cooler mash tun seemed to lose quite a bit of heat through the lid, so i had to add about 3/4 gallon of boiling water half way through the mash to bring it back up. I wrapped a big blanket around it after that and it seemed to stay pretty stable. I did a 2 liter starter and the yeast starting bubbling away in the fermenter about 3 hours after I pitched :rockin: Anyway, it smells outstanding right now, lots of citrus and pine...mmmmm.
I do have one question for some of you experienced all grain brewers. When I did the runoffs for both my initial mash and the batch sparge, I got quite a bit of grain matter into the brewpot and, subsequently, into the fermenter. I vorlauf-ed (is that a word) about 2 quarts off each time and the runnings looked pretty clear. I ran off the rest into the brewpot as fast as my system would allow as per Denny Conn's recommendation, but I have a 1/2 ID valve and tube so I think this may have been too rapid. Would slowing down my runoff rate add to the clarity of the wort I collected?
It's still going to be your beer! 
