Batch #4 - Ale - all-grain

With my new mash/lauter tun in hand, I'm ready to try an all-grain batch. I wasn't planning to buy ingredients when I went to the store, but after learning how easy it would be, I decided to pick up some grain. I really had no idea what I was going to brew and had no recipe. I knew that I needed roughly 2 lbs of grain for every gallon of beer. With that in mind, I sifted through 50 varieties of grain. In the end, here is my grain bill -

4.5 lbs Marris Otter malt
4.5 lbs Gambrinus pale malt
1 lb Extra Special British malt
1 lb Medium Crystal malt (40L)

I got an extra pound because I figured that my extraction rate (i.e., my efficiency in extracting fermentable sugar from the grain when mashing) would be low. You can compensate for low extraction rates by using more grain.

My grain selections were on the pale side (I think), so I decided to go with a pale ale again. I picked up 2oz of Chinook hops, 2oz of Cascade hops, 4 oz of Amarillo hops and liquid yeast (California ale). I also used 10 gallons of bottled spring water.

THE MASH

First step, heat up 6 gallons of water to 160. Then I poured the water into the mash tun and added the 11 lbs of crushed grain. I debated whether to mix the water into the grain or the grain into the water, for unknown reasons, I went with the latter option. I was trying to hit a temperature of 152.

After stirring a few times, the temperature stabilized at 152. I then let it sit for 60 minutes, stirring and monitoring the temp every 15 minutes. I only lost about 1 degree over the hour.

In the meantime, I was heating up the sparge water to 170 (about 3 gallons).

After the 60 minutes, I recirculated a few times and then drained into the brewpot. Then I started pouring in the sparge water at the back end of the cooler. I let that sit for 15 minutes, then drained. Not sure if I did this correctly. My sparge drained real fast (less than 5 min). Afterwards, I read that sparging could take up to an hour. Oh well, I drained until I hit 6.5 gallons in the brewpot.

Next I took a gravity reading - 1.032 at 142 degrees. I haven't done the math yet - but I think that was pretty low. Definitely lower than I wanted.

Next I boiled the wort until it hit the hotbreak (i.e., after the foam subsides). Here is my hopping schedule:

60 min 1.5 oz Chinook (12.6 aau)
30 min .5 oz Chinook
5 min 1 oz Amarillo
knockout 1 oz Amarillo

Also added 1/2 tsp Irish Moss with the first hops.

After the boil - I cooled it to 80 (it took about 20 min). The spec grav was 1.040. How did it get lower? Also, I only got about 4.5 gallons into the fermenter - then, in a panic, I topped off with 1/2 gallon of unsterilized tap water from an unsterilized pitcher. Probably not a good idea.