Ok I just put the grain bill to mash(3 gallon batch), 5.5 lb american 2 row pale, .5 lb 80l crystal and 1lb flaked wheat(was not part of the plan I found it in mt brew stuff and dont know why I had it)
Mashing in 9.5 quarts of water, started out with 7.5 but the mash was only 130* so I put 2 quarts up to a boil and added it in to bring up to 150*.

I am mashing in a cooler. 1 hour to go in a 90 minute mash.........going to check temp now!

Sounds like you have it under control. You might want to use a calculator next time to get your strike water temp a little closer to what it needs to be.

Good luck.

Temp sitting at 154*

My fault on the temp to start with, the grains came out of my freezer with little warm up time and the cooler was in the attic, its a cold day, I would have been ok with some warm up time I think. 1 hout to go on the mash!

Keep us posted, we are here to help. My first AG I had crazy support.

how do I know when the mash is done? Other than just waiting?

Just give it a good hour or so and you'll be fine. You can do an iodine test, but that rarely tells you anything.

ok then, 40 minutes left in the mash..........how much sparage water?

Collect your first runnings and see what you have. Then sparge with whatever amount of water you need to achieve your boil volume. Heat that to around 180F.

Based on what you've done so far. you'll lose about 3 quarts through grain absorption. Depending on your system losses, you should end up with about 6 - 6.5 quarts.

ok time to sparage, be back soon!

ok sparage done, I think I need to redoo my staainer, there is a little "grain dust" that did not get filtered out. Sparaged to 3 gallons (agout 3 quarts) was looking fairly light but a littlr cloudy at the end. On to the boil now, I took a sample waiting for it to cool to grt a gravity reading.

Nice, way to go Eric.

The iodine test is ok but even better is the sticky/sweet test. Just stick your finger in and taste. Even better is like BB said just wait.

"Just stick your finger in and taste."

Works for lots of things

huuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmm i could say something but i don't think it would be up for long.

gravity at 3 gallons unboiled @80* is 1.050. Does that sound right?

if you have 3 gallons unboiled you need to sparge some more unitl you get about 4 gallons. otherwise when you finish your boil you will have around 1.8 to 2 gallons remaining.

Yup, I agree with Paul, you need some more wort. If you stopped right now your efficiency would be 60%. If you sparge some more, that will improve.

oops my fault, I took that reading after 3 gallons collected, I did collect 4.5 gallons total, so I guess that figure is about useless, sorry.

You're perfect at 4.5. Now take another reading and then you can see what you'll be at with about a gallon boil off.

Too late now, boil is almost done. I will report when finished. Looks good and smells good. Doing the whole recipe calculator, I can not match this to any catagory. Looks like it is a "mut" beer.

well all done, og is now 1.054@75*. The eort is very heavy with what I guess is protein I "screened" it twice. I dont know if this is normal or if my irish moss accident has contributed. While measuring the irish moss dose over the kettel the lid came off and I dumped about 3/4 ounce in.

It is a nice coper color, and if it clears up it should be great.

Can any one offer ways to improve my methods, coments thoughts and advice are welcome + or -.

It'll clear up. Just give it time.

Yes time, time, time is on my side, yes it is
Time, time, time is on my side, yes it is
Oh, time, time, time is on my side, yes it is
I said, time, time, time is on my side, yes it is
Oh, time, time, time is on my side
Yeah, time, time, time is on my side

Your in rare form tonight ,BB

You want some of that protein gunk for your yeast and body. +1 bb -it'll drop out.

A medium gravity brew is almost impossible to jack up if you were clean.

Holly cow! some one check my figures please!

og 1.054@75*
fg 1.004@70*

does 7.2 abv figure right?

Likely closer to 6.9% ABV
Try this -- http://dd26943.com/davesdreaded/tools/convert.htm --

looks dry

I am not going to do a secondary, I will let it rest for another week and bottle.

I drank my gravity sample. Tasted strong in alcohol like a Steel Reserve, but was tastier, no esters no malt sweetness.........served cold it might be a great production beer for me!

Eric, I sure hope that it tastes better than Steel City Reserve (High Gravity)....Looks like you had a decent time brewing ...be bold and explore
Once you go all grain its no holds barred....Welcome to the true obsession!