Pumpkin Brew Day Turns into a Nightmare

This has been by far the longest, most frustrating brew day to date.

But I guess it is apropos for a Halloween beer to turn into a horror story.
I'll post the recipe and then explain what happened:

Hellish Halloween Harvest Beer
4.53 ^KG 10 ^LB Domestic 2 row pale
.43^KG1^LB Biscuit (Melanoiden) Malt
.22^KG1/2^LB Crystal Malt
2 small sugar pumpkins baked in the oven at 350 for one hour
2 orange sweet potatoes baked in the oven at 350 for one hour

I chose to mash the veggies instead of including them in the boil.
18 Grams / 1/2 Ounce Nugget Hops 60 mins
29 Grams / 1 Ounce Hersbrucker 5 mins
Wyeast 1275
(I bottled my British Mild tonight, and will rack on top of the yeast slurry)
I picked up my grains this morning and had my boys gut the sugar pumpkins and they had a great time doing it.

Everything went according to plan until it was time to chill the beer and that's where it all fell apart. The immersion chiller sprung a leak and gave the beer about 3 extra gallons of cold water. There was a lot of swearing. The only choice I thought I had was to boil to reduce back down to 5 gallons. Well, 4 hours later, I was finally able to put it in the bathtub full of cold water. I didn't dare try fixing or using the immersion chiller ( that would be just asking for more trouble).

I didn't know what to do regarding the hops or what the best method would be so I threw in 18 grams of nugget at 60 mins left in the boil and 29 grams of Hersbrucker at flameout. I wonder what the double dosing of the wort with the additional hops will lend to the beer? I tried the sweet wort and it tasted like a baby bitter but unfortunately, I didn't get any pumpkin notes. Of course, you shouldn't judge a beer on the first day so I will wait and find out.
Well, it is 4 AM and I think it's finally reached its pitchable temperature. Then, I'm off to bed. This was my first 14 hour brew day. I hope that never happens again.

The Beginning

I am a stay at home dad taking care of 1 1/2 year old twin boys.  They are awesome little guys, but I need a hobby or I feel I will go crazy.  So, at the beginning of 2011, I decided to accomplish two things before the year's end:  learn how to juggle and learn how to brew good all-grain beer.  I won't be blogging about my juggling prowess (which doesn't exist), but I will be writing about beer.

I have a notebook that I will be writing everything down in as backup.  Actually, this blog is more of a backup than the notebook.  I can't take my computer to the home brewing store and it would be harder to do a quick reference in regards to recipes and such.  So, the notebook is my beer bible and this blog is to help me reinforce what I've learned. 

I plan to cook my first batch in early to mid-March and I will update this blog before that date as much as possible.  I am also going to try to do this as cheaply as I can. A 12 pack of decent beer is about $22.00 here in Manitoba, breaking it down to about $1.85 per beer.  I know there is cheaper stuff out there but me and my wife enjoy good beer.  We like to have a beer after the boys go to sleep for the night.  Unfortunately, that's starting to get very expensive.  I will be writing down how much money I am spending on equipment and ingredients to see if this is actually worth the effort.  However, I am learning a lot, so right now, it is worth the effort.

Comments will be greatly appreciated.