Presidents Day brew day was a success! Overall a much better effort than the previous all-grain brew. My efficiency was over 75%, and the post boil volume was spot on.

After reviewing what went right (and what went wrong) during my last brew, I settled on a few process changes. First, I did a much better pre-heat of my mash tun. This prevented the thermal losses when I added my strike water. Second, I used spring water - which kept my pH lower. These revisions helped quite a bit. The mash held steady for 70 minutes right at 154*, and the pH was almost spot on at about 5.7.

By not adding additional water to adjust the mash temperature, I was able to keep my volumes accurate, and ended up with a perfect 5.5 gallons after the boil. From here, I will continue to tweak my process. I hope to get up to 85% to 90% efficiency and get the pH to 5.5. This may require water treatment and/or crushing my own grains.