Brew 26 -- Winter Warmer

Yep, the second brew in as many weeks. This time it's a Northern Brewer all-grain kit called Winter Warmer. It's supposed to be a higher-alcohol kit, and the 1.060 original gravity seems to confirm that. :-) This time I had much better results with the mash temperature; I heated the water to 180 degrees, added it directly to the mash-tun, and then added the grains, all in one go. I had 4 gallons of water, and just over 12 lbs of grain. The temperature after all that was about 156F, so I added some cold water to bring the temperature down. Next time I will use a 1:1 ratio instead of 1.33 qt H20 : 1 lb grain. Anyway, here's the recipe....
Date of Brew: October 7, 2006
Date of Bottling: Not yet!
Ingredients

• Grains
  11.5 lbs Crisp Maris Otter
  1 lb Simpson's Crystal
  0.25 lbs Simpon's Chocolate
• Hops
  1 oz Northern Brewer (60 mins)
  1 oz Fuggle (30 mins)
  1 oz Kent Goldings (1 min)
• Yeast
  Wyeast #1728 Scottish Ale Yeast #1145261

Mash
4 gallons, 153 F for 60 min.
There was supposed to be a 170 F for 10 min, but I couldn't get the water temperature to budge, because there was too much thermal inertia from the initial four gallons.
Number of Gallons in Boil: 6
Boil Time: 60 mins
Gallons in Fermenter: 5