First AG and it was interesting. First, warm out in central Illinois. Lots of bugs out on a day like today and I moved the operation to the backyard from the garage to give my new-to-brew friend some more room and to relax with his second batch (a wit) ever. His tasted good for his second batch. Gratz to him. First, to warm up the mlt cooler, I used boiling water and bubbled the inside of the cooler a little. No biggie. Not upset at all. But all day, fighting the gnats and the bees and they were a force to be reckoned with. Super pleased that my 6.5g of wort boiled down to 5g. Started using my cfc for the first time, but I lacked some height and some good starting pressure that caused my wort to flow very slow. All the time, little gnats are trying to get all over my fermented. At least a dozen were fished out of the wort or off of the interior walls. Then a bee! WTF! Get them all out and have to dump the rest of the kettle in since I lack a false bottom to get all of the goods below the ball valve (new kettle as well). Notice that removing the hop bags left me a little shy of 5g so I top of with some spring water. Not too terrible since it was only a 1/2g, but after I top off I am now up to 5.25g. So, I misread my shadows and have a larger wort. Guess I can live with the slightly watered down Bells Amber Ale clone, but I hope the bugs did not completely infect my creation. Oh well. Live and learn. Next time, we brew in the garage and keep it closed up.