My first all grain!

Tomorrow I'm making my first all grain brew. The recipe calls for 13 qt of water at 152 for the mash. For the mash out I will add 2 gallons of water at 200 degrees to get it up to 170 F. After ten minutes I will vorlauf it and then proceed to let it in to the brew kettle while fly sparging with the sparge water at 170 degrees. Then I do the hour long boil, add my hops and all that stuff. Let me know if I got anything wrong here or anything I need to be made aware of.

Here is what I'm making, which I thought was highly appropriate since I'm a dairy farmer... http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/speckled-heifer-all-grain-kit.html

Congrats! Go for it

If it's your first time, there's going to be unexpected problems unless you make sure EVERYTHING is planned out ahead and executed with precision. Don't worry though - it will be a fun and educational experience.

You will want to make sure you preheat your mashtun and also calculate the temperature loss when adding your grains. For example if your want your mash water at 152 and you add 65 degree grain to it the temp is going to drop below your target of 152. I use Beersmith to calculate all of that for me. Here is a free calculator that can help you if you need it. http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml.

Also for beginners I find it easier to batch sparge than fly sparge. Just a suggestion. It's a little less efficient but it is a lot easier. Here is some info on batch sparging. http://hbd.org/cascade/dennybrew/

All grain is a great adventure! Good luck!

When your wort approaches the boiling point, watch it like a hawk because it likes to form a huge head of foam that will boil over in about 3 seconds. Once that foam (hot break) falls back into the wort, you can add you hops but watch again because the hops can cause more bubbles to form. Mine nearly went over the side of my pot twice today and I knew what to watch for.

If you want to mash at 152F, you will need to add water at higher temp than that so the grains and mash tun will absorb some of the heat and equalize at desired 152F. The mash tun needs to be well insulated so it retains 152F as long as possible for the time of the mash.
Calculation for my setup, if was going to brew 13lb of grain and aim for 152F, my strike water temp would need to be 5 gallons at 171F, assuming my grain temp at 65F and 1.5 water to grain ratio.
Also, do not fly sparge with 170F water, that's too hot. Do it with 160 to 165F water.
As already stated, pay close attention to your boil to avoid a boil over.
Good luck.

Did I use too much water? I ended up with about five and a half gallons of beer. When I did that with an extract brew, I ended up with some what watery beer. Like someone at the bar was watering it down. So they could sell more.

Also, I pitched my yeast at about 85 because I had to leave for work. It was a Wyeast slap pack, is that ok?

85 is on the hot side. I f im using ale yeast i shoot for 60 to 75. as far as water, did you take gravity reading before adding yeast? what was it. Youll have less alcahol content. if you were shooting for a 6% beer it will come out more like a 5.3-5.5 shouldnt taste watery. you brew and you learn!

85 wont kill the yeast, but it might have some off flavors.

pitching at 85F should not be an issue if the if temp dropped to 70F or under in next 24h. If that is the case, relax and wait.

Checked it out this morning, there is krausen. I guess all is well.