Check out School House Brewing over off of Delk and Franklin Gateway, near Red Hare and Ironmonger. They host a HBC meeting the 1st and 3rd Thursday of every month.
I vote basement as well. It is likely more consistent of a temp down there than upstairs. 60F to 72F is 1056's operating range. You'll be in perfect shape.
I do full wort boils in my 8 gallon kettle. Lately I've been biab mashing in the 8 gallon and sparging in a 2nd pot, then combining the wort once near boiling. I find it helps me heat the wort up faster since I can make use of a second 10k btu burner on my stove top.
OP, I'd try a different yeast strain. It could be all temp driven (us05 is known for peach at low temps), or you just might prefer a different yeast strain that has a different flavor profile.
I agree with slym2 and C-Rid, leaving on the yeast cake for a few weeks doesn't hurt. IMO as a general rule, is better to leave alone for 3-4 weeks to give time for the yeast to clean-up.
That's not too far off from me I'm in DuPage county between Naperville and Lisle. You have a homebrew club? If not you should check out knaves.org and come join us. We meet at Rock Bottom in Warrenville the last Wed of every month.
I say give it a shot! I've had smoked tea leaves and smoked malt before but never smoked hops. I would think you'd definitely want to go with a low temp. Too high of a heat and the volatile oils will degrade and evaporate much faster.
Do you have a variety and/or recipe in mind? Just a...
Hey masonsjax, Would you mind expanding upon this? At what point are you at risk of oxidation, i.e. - what if there was only had 1.5 gallons of head space? I've recently heard some conflicting schools of thought on cold crashing induced oxidation. Just trying to gather more info and...
A larger bag would probably my first change. What size bag are you using?
Picking the bag up a few inches when you have to reapply heat for a minute or two should work. I've seen lots of people use that method.
As a test you could try mashing in the same bag but with a smaller amount...
I've experienced this while doing BIAB before. I think my grist was too tight. I was using a 16L rectangular cooler that was too wide to stretch my bag over the edges. I had to stir several times over the course of 10 minutes to get everything uniform and happy.