Secondly, made the wrong brew! Meant to do Timothy Taylor's Landlord but ordered the goods for TT Best Bitter from Brewzone. Can't fault him - excellent service as usual - just me being an idiot. Here's the bits anyway, making use of some Goldings I had already:
We had a burst water main on this side of Nottingham on Friday. The water was back to normal yesterday but I didn't trust it so I boiled up 15 litres last night. Added it to my mash tun today and it gushed out everywhere.
This towel was underneath: 
Thought it might be game over, but emptied it back into the HLT, checked the tap, tested it with cold water and it was OK. Cue more time-wasting as it had to get the water back up to 80C. For the first time the mash temperature was too low: 63C. Added about a litre of hot brewing liquor and got it to 65.5C. I think the problem was that we had a frost last night, the tun was in a shed and was a bit nippy.
After 90 minutes had the same problem as before - the tap wanted to turn round. No matter how much you tighten the damned thing it works its way loose under heat. And it still seems to leak. Look at these (the 2nd pic is where the tun had been):
I'm going to have make a new tun using a 15mm lever valve and tank connector. A tap that doesn't move would be nice, and I won't need thick tubing just for the mash tun.
Sparging was fine, jugging over foil. Ended up with 30 litres of wort which went down to 23 by the end of boiling. Topped up to 25 to get SG of 1040. Would love to show you the evidence but this was as good as it got. Need to work out how to use my camera.
Hydrated the Nottingham yeast and it was almost jumping out of the jug.
For the first time I left the wort to settle for 30 minutes after cooling had finished. Glad I did because the hops filtered out more trub and the wort was crystal clear going into the FV. Again, a shot of the clarity would be good but I failed miserably. I put a small chip pan sieve thing on to top of the FV neck (it's only 2 inches so a normal sieve is too big) expecting it to catch all manner of things, but only a couple of flecks went in there. Here's what was left in the boiler though:
All in all, a successful day and I have high hopes for it. I think adding gypsum will make a difference and the clarity of the wort was an unexpected bonus. I need to replace the mash tun and buy a Salifert KH carbonate test kit and Brupak CRS for next time though. Eventually a sparge arm too but maybe for AG#6.
At least I'll be able to make a 9 or 10% brew without worrying about headspace.
Maybe it was the water. Tastes a bit like water that's been in a flask for too long. Not much sign of body, even though it's the FG was 1012. I'll see how it goes after I've barelled it but can't see it getting much better.