Brauerei Backyard

today i am brewing Alt, a reddish-brown malty style brewed in northern Germany. I've brewed several german-style beers in the past, and i have done an Alt before, but i thought that with further experience and skill i might make a better one than the first. However...

I have been plagued by mashing problems today. The hot water went in just fine, and mixed up nicely with the grain, but that is where the easy stopped and the pain in the rear began. it seems that i made a connection in the mash tun in error, laying the tubing atop the perforated drain instead of beneath it, and during a stir, the tubing came disconnected. I had to pull up the perf-drain and reconnect, but while i did that the grains fell beneath the perf-drain and now i would not get all the yummy wort out. The temperature would not not not hold at 148 today, i had to constantly heat it with my heat-wand, a big pain. Then, while sparging, the whole darn perf-drain fell apart, causing lots of large lumps of grains to fall into my collection tub, pre-boil. Long story short, i had to abort the sparge, dump the entire contents of the mash tun into a bucket and start the sparge again, which was a huge-mungous pain. I cant predict how this beer is going to turn out now, but now things are back on line and going fine, I'm hoping to be able to collect 9 gallons of wort for boiling. Normally i would get a pretty clear wort out of my mash tun, today it is cloudy, a turbid mash. so, i may not get clear results at the end.
(several hours later...)
through trials we find success! my wort hit all the numbers i had hoped including quantity, color and gravity. i'll let you know how it is in about 6 weeks!
Prost!