Born To Be Mild

If you have never tried a Northern English Mild, you are missing out on a great full flavored session beer that is both an inexpensive beer to brew and is a quick beer to go from grain to glass; it can be ready to drink in a couple weeks if you push it. With an ABV of approximately 3.6% and chock full of antioxidants found in darker beers, your liver will love it too! I'm actually brewing this beer as a starter for a nut brown ale I'm brewing for the holidays.
Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: Nottingham
Yeast Starter: nope
Additional Yeast or Yeast Starter: nope, this is a starter
Batch Size (Gallons): 5.5
Grist:
5 lb 8 oz Maris Otter (Crisp, UK)
1 lb 8 oz Crystal 60L (Crisp, UK)
6 oz Chocolate malt (Crisp, UK)
Additions:
1.25 oz UK Fuggle 4.0% at 45 minutes (1oz 4.3%)
1.25 oz UK Fuggle 4.0% at 15 minutes

Mash at 156 degrees for 60 minutes at 1.25qt/lb water to grain ratio(2.50 gallons), mashout with 2gallons of 185 degree water and Vorlauf until first runnings are clear. Batch sparge with 3.25 gallons 170 degree water to get to pre-boil volume.

Pitch yeast at the starting fermentation temp of 65 degrees and ramp up to 68 degrees after 3 days at initial fermentation temp.

Uggh..not sure what happened here, maybe the small grist, but I lost a lot of temp in the mash in and only settled at 151 degrees. This is way off and will produce a much less malty beer that i was hoping for. i have two choices here, i could add a little lactose to sweeten up the wort (but it'll raise gravity) or i can try to heat a plastic cooler on the stove. I'm choosing option #2. 4oz.
mashed in at 8:30am, mashed out at 9:30 with 1.75 gallons 189 degree water, bringing the temp up to around 157, left it there for 15 minutes to see if I could correct the mash temp inefficiency a bit. Sparged at 10:00am. draind 2nd runnings into kettle at 10:15 am
hotbreak 10:45
first hop addition 11:00
second hop addition 11:30
cool down 11:45
pitch yeast at 72 degrees, drop to 65 and hold for 3 days
OG 1.039