Blogged my first all-grain brew

I just started brewing all-grain and used beersmith to help.

I posted some pics of the process on my new blog.


http://chemicalsams.blogspot.com/2009/08/first-all-grain-batch-of-beer.html

I would be very open to any helpful suggestions to improve my process.

Thanks,
Aaron

The pictures of shiny equipment are great and from the looks of it you are off to an excellent start.  In this case however pictures are not worth a thousand words and if you want some meaningful feedback (mostly from some of the other experts) you should post your recipe as well as your observations including the gravity measurements.  You might look at your efficiency and see how that changes with modifications to you methods in subsequent batches.

I would say you are off to an outstanding start, you just need an additional picture of a shiny new grain mill for your next batch.

cheers

I kinda figured that the pics and my descriptions were just vague enough to not be helpful.  Thanks for the feedback though.

I have the beginning gravity, and will measure the final in a few weeks.

How exactly do I determine my efficiency?

For a warmer upper read this: http://www.beersmith.com/blog/2008/10/26/brewhouse-efficiency-for-all-grain-beer-brewing/

After that you can click the brewhouse efficiency button which is next to where you set you boil time and simply enter you gravity and volume measurements.  The more efficient you are at extracting sugar from malt the less grain you will need.  However, consistency is also important and will help you brew beers matching their profiles.  There are also lots of other great posts on this subject if you do a search.

cheers

awesome! thanks for your help, I really appreciate it.