While the mash mashes, I heat sparge water in one pot and 6 litres of boiling water in the other.
My whole system centres around the two 18 qt stainless steel pots, bought for under $20 each at SuperStore. I saw nicer pots for sale at Canadian Tire for $19 each a few weeks ago. They heat fast, are easy to lift, and clean up nicely. Plus they're good for canning and mondo batches of chili.
To take accurate temps of the grain bed, you have to sample several different spots and average it it. I'm getting 150F at this spot, but 157F at others - averages out to about 154F. Not bad for starting out at 155F and mashing for 90 minutes.
I use iodine to check for conversion. The fist shot (a little over-exposed) shows a positive test for starch. The idodine turns black where it mixes with the mash liquor.
The second shot shows a negative test. Little bits of grain in the mash liquor are turning slightly dark, but the liquid itself is staying tea-coloured. Time to sparge!
The first runnings - notice how cloudy they are. I recirculate about 8 litres to get crystal clear runnings.
Notice my lovely Sunday morning hairdo.
This shot shows how clear you can get the runnings with a good crush, good conversion, and good recirculation. And clear runnings makes for clear beer.
For a while I tried to squeeze every last point out of my grain. I sparged until the runnoff was 1.008.
My new philosophy is to aim for low, low efficiency, about 65% (I stop sparging when the runnoff hits 1.025). I base this on the "No Sparge" method outlined by George Fix - I call my method "Low Sparge." Grain is cheap, and since I've used this method my beers have been maltier and cleaner.
Finnigan keeps an eye on the sparge.
Cheap brewer's tip #3 - dogs are great for keeping the kitchen floor clean.
I usually first wort hop - that is, adding hops to the collecting sweet wort. It seems to increase hop flavour, plus if you add hops here you don't screw up and forget to add them when the wort boils.