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Not sure what the problem is from your description. The lower mash temp will create more fermentables, lessening the body, but I would think if that were the issue you would have an unusually low fg. I can tell you this though, doing a protein rest, which is what I assume would be the step in...

when I've used irish moss I rehydrated it in warm water and added it at 15 min. Pretty sure those were the manufacturer's instructions.

Wow that's the biggest beer I've ever heard of

I have pretty much the same HLT as you do, 110 volt heating element. Never had any problems but I never accidentally boiled the water with it either. Maybe rather than going back to the old setup you should try it again with the heating element and keep the temp from going too high.

Had a batch that came out pure bananas...it was a pale ale recipe. I think isoamyl acetate was the problem. It wasn't easy but I drank em all. Helped me appreciate fermentation temp control.

I'd suggest using the 10g cooler for the mash tun for a couple reasons. Extra room in your mash tun allows you to do a thinner mash which generally means higher efficiency. I read that in this article...

Also noticed you do a 15 min rest at 145, which is right in the middle of the temp. range for beta amylase. That'll definitely result in a higher wort fermentability, low f.g.

Here’s a lil thermodynamic calculation. Specific Enthalpy Water @ 80 degrees=38.2 Btu/lb To Specific Enthalpy Water @ 40 degrees=8.1 btu/lb Density of water= 8.33 lbs/gal Avg cooling capacity of a mini fridge, aprox. =150 btu/hr Weight of 30 gal water= 30 gal * (8.33 lbs/gal)= 250 lbs/...

Looks like a great recipe! I'm not sure what your setup is like, but aeration is really important for high gravity beers like this one. If you can hit it with a second dose of oxygen 12 to 18 hours after the start of fermentation it'll improve attenuation and reduce off-flavors. Also, are you...

Is the wheat your using malted or unmalted? If it's malted that protein rest you're doing might be making your beer too thin. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't affect final gravity, but a protein rest on fully modified malts can reduce body and head retention to unacceptable levels.

Don't use sugar water, by propagating yeast in wort you sort of acclimate it to that environment. If you propagate the yeast by just feeding it simple sugars it won't be able to consume the more complex sugars found in beer. I'd suggest pale malt extract, I don't think you'll detect any...

You have about 2.75 cubic inches, or 45 ml of yeast slurry there. In Yeast: The Practical Guide to Beer Fermentation Chris White says that a yeast slurry will usually have a density between .8 billion and 2 billion cells per ml. You washed your yeast and it looks pretty clean so I'd estimate...

It sounds like it could be acetaldehyde, which can give a green apple flavor, and/or acetic acid which would lend the beer a vinegar like flavor and aroma. The two often come hand in hand with beer. If that is the culprit, the sour flavor would probably be the result of bacterial infection and...

taste it, if the beer's sour, its most likely contaminated.

Haha yeah its tough to wait, you have to be careful though, if you rack the beer away from the yeast to early you can get butterscotch flavors. Its good to let the yeast clean up after themselves. I like to give the beer around 14 days in the primary, depending on type, style, yeast strain, etc.

Here's a quote from designing great beers about the difference between hopping late in the boil and dry hopping. "Hop research indicates that the flavors produced by dry hopping are quite different from those that result from addition during the boil. Late-hopped additions have been...

One really cool thing about yeast is that they clean up after themselves. During fermentation they'll produce esters like diacetyl, but if you give them time they'll consume them again. Diacetyl gives beer kind of a butterscotch flavor. That's one big reason that I wait until all the yeast...

When I'm designing recipes I usually try to hit a certain bitterness ratio (IBU's/Gravity Units), since the gravity of the beer does affect the impact of the amount of IBU's. So you adding 20% more IBU's to offset the higher gravity makes sense to me. Where did you add the extra IBU's in...

I've done this a couple of a times and the beer turned out fine, don't think it made any difference in terms of flavor.

From the sound of it I'd think efficiency would be the bigger concern with your setup than hot side aeration. If you're doing a continuous sparge you want to slowly and evenly rinse the grains, over the course of an hour or so. That way you maximize the amount of sugars making it into your...