Brew night was last night. Thanks for all the suggestions. I pretty much followed the kit instructions very closely. For the steeped grains I killed the heat on my stove when my thermometer hit 155 and dropped the grains in. I left the kettle on the hot burner so the temp ended up going up a few more degrees to 159. The temp only dropped to 146 by the end of the 25-minute steep, so I think most of the time there was spent in the 148-158 mash range.
It took well over an hour to get the 3 gallons of wort up to a full boil on my cooktop. I might try the side burner on my gas grill next time just to see if I can hit a boil faster then come inside to add the extract and keep things at a rolling boil on the stove.
I think I have a good technique for a fairly quick chilldown in my sink. I have a dual sink that is mounted under our granite counters and a pull-out faucet head/hose. I was able to set my kettle in one side of the sink and submerged my faucet head next to it. I left the cold water running the whole time so it would circulate around my kettle then the overflow spills up and over into the other sink basin and drains from there. Got my 3 gallons down to 80 degrees in under 20 minutes.
The kit lists a ballpark OG of 1.058, and I came in at 1.060, so I think I'm pretty close (may have boiled off a bit more liquid than expected since it took so long to boil). Almost forgot to take my OG reading, thankfully I doublechecked my checklist.
Will keep you guys posted on how it comes out and thanks again for all the advice.
