My second batch (Oatmeal Stout mini-mash)

Northern Brewer General
1

I just brewed my second batch of beer, a Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout type and have a few questions/observations:

  1. I followed the directions during sparging by slowly pouring about 3 quarts of 170º water over the
    mash bag in a culender over my boil kettle. during the boil I came back in the kitchen and
    noticed the bag had drained out another pint or so of super dark wort, so I dumped it in with the
    wort I was boiling. Was that o.k.? Also it leads me to believe I should have used more water
    during sparging or possibly 2 bags sing there was almost 4 lbs of grains.

  2. I did almost all of the boil with a cover on the pot. While reading more in the Palmer book I see
    where he says that can introduce some bad taste. Thoughts on this?

  3. I did a 3 gallon boil and added ice water (purified water frozen in sanitized covered plastic
    containers) and an ice bath at the cold break and did a great job of cooling it from boiling to 75º
    in about 10 minutes. OG was 1.044 and was supposed to be 1.052 so I added 9.5 oz of the
    priming sugar (which I don’t need since I am kegging) and it brought the OG up to 1.051 which is
    close enough. I’m wondering If it would have been better to do a full boil? Or possibly my OG
    was off because of the poor job I did sparging?

  4. Finally when I pitched the yeast I unscrewed the container (which had been at room temp for
    almost 24 hours) and it spewed like shaken can of coke. Hopefully no infections but it did get on
    my hand and into the wort. Anyway it’s fermenting happily this morning at 65º.

Thanks.