First Grain Mash, two runs only 2 quarts of likker?

[hotrod77]

Hey y'all, thanks for all the support over my successful first run. The first one was just a simple Turbo sugar wash to get my feet wet and get used to the still. Surprisingly came out great, with about a 7 gallon wash I produced about 7 quarts of very clear likker (including foreshots, heads, and tails). Did my best to familiarize myself with the taste, etc., to get educated for making cuts in the future.

My SECOND RUN came out even better, but I didn't get a whole lot out of it. I'm into Bourbon, so I tried a mash with flaked maize, liquid malt extract, and distiller's yeast. I let it ferment for about 11 days, when the bubblin' slowed significantly I poured off what I could and strained it. Then I poured all the grain in nylon paint straining bag (recommended from this site, thank you). SO, my questions are in a couple parts.

First (I've seen this question around a lot, but I have a specific angle): Straining the grain--I found it nearly impossible to strain the goopy mess after I pulled all the thin wash off the top. I wrapped it all in the nylon bag, tied it up, and let it drip into a bucket for about 24 hours. This only produced about a gallon of wash. Overall I got MAYBE 4 gallons of wash from the entire mash, is that about right or did I not strain in correctly? Does everyone pull the clear stuff off the top first and then see what they can get out of the grain, or am I missing something?

Second, I decided to do one stripping run followed by a spirit run with the mash. I reserved a little of the low wines to sample next to the "finished" spirit. On the stripping run I got 5 good quart jars full, I discarded the foreshots and measured the alcohol (alongside tasting) to attempt my cuts. I probably could have pulled about 7 quarts out of it before it got too hot, but I'm new and trying to be conservative with my cuts. After stripping it, I gave the boiler (keg) a quick wash after it cooled down and set to running my 5 quarts (plus a few feints from my previous sugar run) in a spirit run. Following Ian Smiley's recommendation I topped off the boiler with a few extra quarts in order to have more than 8L in the keg. NOW, I only got about 2 good quart jars full before it got very hot and the run was getting to the end. I'm having a little trouble with the heads, but I KNOW when the hearts are over, the distillate gets real watery and a little greasy when the tails start coming in. SO, I'm a little disheartened at only getting two good (and delicious) jars out of my stripping run. I've seen a lot of calculations, but should I be getting more final product from 6-7 gallons of mash on two runs in a pot still?

Now I've got a bunch of good feints and backset too start my own sourmashing (wish me luck!). Thanks for the time and help y'all.

Hotrod