I'm fairly new to brewing, but I've been doing extract beers with specialty grains (side question: is this considered a partial mash?), and the recipes I've used thus far have been pretty standard: About two gallons of water in the primary fermenter. Three gallons in the brew pot, first steeping the grains for about 30-45 minutes, then adding the extract. But the more research I do, it seems like some people call for about 1 gallon of water per 1lb of speciality grains. Is that a hard rule? For example, the last batch (apricot blond ale) only had a half-pound of specialty grains, which means I would only use a gallon of water at most? Doesn't seem like enough water. Or do I steep the grains in one gallon and then add more water, bring to a boil and then add the extract?
My overall impression is that everyone has a slightly different method and they all more or less work ... my first few beers have been pretty good using the three-gallon method....