Two points here Robdog. I would suggest sticking to a simple brew for your first one rather than a stout or porter which are more involved. There are posts all over detailing simple beers made with just one or possibly two hops and Maris Otter or similar. I'm not a real lover of darker beers and hence have not yet tried but I'd still stick with lighter ones for the time being even given my 7 AG's so far. I have started darkening them up with crystal malt successfully but you're talking about the black stuff.
Try if you like but I'd strongly suggest that you try something like Styrian Stunner first as it's so much simpler and less likely to give complications.
I commend you on going batch sparge, it's worked for me and whilst fly-sparging is tempting (mostly to avoid having to do two mashes like tomorrow) I'm resisting the urge until I can upgrade to an 80l shiny mash tun and will continue batch sparging probably. The second point was about you ordering a second boiler with one element. If you have the spare cash then I have to agree it's a good move. I too didn't fancy messing about heating my water for the mash, draining that into an FV and then transferring back to the boiler when it was empty, too much hassle. I actually bought a Cygnet 27l tea urn and use that as my HLT. Your solution will actually be better as mine requires that I have to top up the boiler during mashing as it doesn't hold enough which is a bit of a pain.
Anyway, welcome to the world of AG, there's no looking back when you've made your first batch!
Edit: Damn, forgot the immersion chiller issue. I bought mine from Leyland as it was marginally cheaper than H&G but you'll be left with the same problem, they're made to hook over 5g boilers and not the 10g boilers we use. If you hook it on it'll barely reach the wort. On my first go I just chucked it in and didn't hook it on. With the boiling wort, the pipes softened so much that when I turned the cold tap on to chill it, water spurted everywhere! Still got a good brew out of it surprisingly.
To remedy this I've added jubilee clips to prevent this happening and it all works just fine. You may want to consider making your own or else buying one that doesn't suffer this issue but if you do get the H&G one, get some jubilee clips on there.
