Using Beersmith, I'd come up with a fairly standard Dry Irish Stout recipe (70:20:10 pale, flaked, roasted), a touch of amber malt and a little late maple syrup, which had worked well in a Cooper's Stout kit I'd made a while back.
Kicked off by running water through the filter and on into both the HLT and Boiler via the flow meter to record total volume. Worked out I needed 77.6 litres overall for mash volume plus sparges 1 and 2. That turned out to be wrong as the hops soaked up a lot more than I thought, in addition to the 2.5 litre deadspace in the Boiler. While the vessels were filling up with water, I prepped the yeast. I'd like to get into splitting up those White Labs yeast tubes but, for a first attempt, simply rehydrating a few packets of dry yeast was enough to be going on with. For comparison purposes, I used two types; S04 and T-58. The latter has proved good with kit stouts I've done in the past. Here are the yeasties awaiting duty.
Here's the grain weighed out, all 12kgs of it. I'd like to get into water treatment some more but, for the first attempt, filtering the water and adding a tablespoon of gypsum per 4kgs of grain was enough. My water is highly alkaline so, from reading the Water Treatment section on Jim's, I figured brewing a stout was the way to go to avoid the extra step that water treatments bring.
On flything's advice (and good advice too as it seems the easiest way to do it apart from my equipment's failure), I wanted to try underletting the mash liquor into the MT with the grain already in situ. I still have not figured out why but, even though the liquor was being pumped, it would not make its way in; at least not at any decent flow rate. And yes, the ball valve was open. I took me a while to check but it was. So my introduction to AG started with jugging the sodden grains back out of the MT, clearing the strainer area and then simply filling up by hose. Somehow, I hit 68c when mashed in, stuck a sleeping bag over the top of the MT and gave it 90 minutes.
The temperature held at exactly 68c throughout but, to be honest about it, that was using a cheap old Young's thermometer. My proper hand-held ended up in with the mash as I tried to take a photo. To all those who depict their brewdays via Nikon/Canon/Kodak etc., I salute your ambidextrous abilities. Here's a shot of the sparge liquor getting up to temperature (easy photo).
First runnings were recirculated using foil with holes; only needed 2 or 3 litres before they were free of debris.
The run-off into the Boiler got progressively worse on batch sparge #2. When I cleaned the kit afterwards, the strainer was pretty full of spent grains. At this point though it was running well.
Here's the Boiler getting up to temperature. Sparge #2 wort was soon added but took forever to drain. Ultimately, I worked out I ended up with around 75 litres into the Boiler, a couple short of an already poorly-conceived total requirement before losses to evaporation. I did manage to take a sample for a hydrometer reading, which came out at 1.012 at 27c: 1.014 adjusted. That probably meant I could have wrung a few more litres out of the grains without risking tannin extraction. Live and learn.
Eventually, I had to call time on the run-off from batch sparge #2. Here are the spent grains.
As soon as boiling point was hit, the timer went on and the 90 minute hops were floated. No 15 minute or flame out hop additions, again keeping it nice and simple, as well as in accordance with accepted stout-brewing principles.
At 75 minutes, I took a litre or so of wort and mixed in my maple syrup then microwaved it for a couple of minutes before adding it back into the boiler along with the IC and 2 x protofloc tablets. On 90 mins the burner was turned off and water circulated through both pre-IC (the black box, which is copper coils with hozelock fittings in an ice block) and IC. Warm waste water was run off to an FV to use for washing equipment afterwards.
Once the wort had hit 25c the QDs were plugged in and it was pumped into some sterlised FVs. Here you can see the March May doing its thing on the left and the use of the workmate to facilitate aeration (i.e. to save me standing there).
Finally, after a long day's brewing, 3 FVs of the black stuff. Total wort collection 56 litres, 7 short of the desired 63.
12 hours later and the yeasties are off and running, with the T-58 shown here leading by a short krausen from the S04s.
And finally a glass of heavily-modified Brewferm Tarwebier wheat beer to celebrate the first AG.
Overall the brew took 8 hours from filling the HLT to pitching the yeast (though I did make up 3 lager kits as well in the pauses). The priority issues to resolve are:
1. The MT strainer had become progressively blocked, which is why run-off was good to begin with and got worse. The amount of grain that came out from behind the mesh was unreal. Time to revisit the threads on grain strainers.
2. The gas burner I have is this one http://www.gasproducts.co.uk/acatalog/L ... tml#aHA316 which I thought would be up to the job for 70/80 litres. I did create a makeshift wind shield but it still took forever. I'm going to do some research on fabricating a shroud before I think about upgrading; if anyone has a shroud on theirs, I'd be most grateful to see a picture.
3. I have to go back to the theoretical drawing board to work out my equipment capacities. The aim was for 63 litres into the FVs at a gravity of 1.042 (expected ABV of 4.1%) and I actually achieved 56 litres at 1.037 (expected ABV 3.4%). I know the mash temperature was a little high at 68c (was aiming for 66c). During both sparges, the MT was brimming even though I'd worked out using an online calculator that with its 66 litre capacity it would handle 12kgs of grain, 30 litres of mash liquor and 30 liquors of sparge liquor. Perhaps the grain did not absorb as much liquor as predicted.
Any views/tips/criticisms welcome: all in all I was pleased with how things went but obviously there are many improvements to be made. Happy brewing.
Keep posting more on this thread so that we can follow the progress of your brew 
hope it turns out a good one 
