Well, the new method was a mess. I mean literally a mess. Everything got stuck during the sparge and I was forced to move everything to another vessel for sparging, and that spread a lot of stuff everywhere. Efficiency was less than anticipated. I forgot to mash out on account of trying to get the arm from the false bottom to the spigot valve. It was what I kinda like about brewing: a usual first time around fuck-up. Next time I'll be doing the protein rest with 1.25 quarts to the pound of grain so that the temperature is actually consistent. 1 quart to the pound was far too thick and the temperature what different in every spot I checked. I'll know the temperature when adding water to get to the desired first rest temperature for the mash if the mash is thin enough that it mixes up well, which is to say I'll know how to get to the temperature for the next step, or near enough that direct heat quickly gets me there. Also, I should pay more attention to what I'm doing. Anytime there is heat on the kettle, stir and know the temperature.

The process highlighted some things for me. First, I should be aiming to produce 5.25 gallons of what I want, and planning on loosing .25 gallons to the transfer to the fermenter. I'm pretty sure that I'm boiling off 1.25 gallons per hour. I'm getting almost exactly five gallons off (when I'm using pellet hops) but my gravity has been a little below expetations. What I've been doing is boiling off a little less than I expect, giving me a lower gravity than I expect and getting five gallons of 5.25 that should have been five, about 95% of the beer that was planned.