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If you do like chocolate I'd suggest looking into porters. To me they tend to have more of a chocolate flavor than coffee.

No they don't matter, unless you decide the beer tastes so good you want to enter a competition.

The rubber band will probably stay on better than a larger piece of foil. It only needs to be loose enough to prevent pressure building up. If you get any foam coming out under the rubber band that's more than enough for gas to escape.

The only potential problem I see from the picture is the rubber band, as long as it is loose enough to allow CO2 to escape you'll be fine.

I've never tried it but suspect there would a significant amount of oxidation. There are self priming diaphragm pumps that claim to be good for transfers after fermentation but I've never used one.

My guess is that you probably have enough viable yeast left for carbonation. The bigger concern would be wether the yeast finished fermenting the beer before going dormant from the cold. Take a hydrometer reading to see if you reached expected FG. You don't want to risk bottle bombs.

I've used one of those a couple of times now but have never gone over 3 oz of pellet hops. Really cuts down on the beer lost when transferring to a bottling bucket. I'm still undecided if they hurt flavor/aroma. It's hard for me to determine that because I haven't brewed the same beer twice to...

That would be called a flow control faucet. I've never used one but there are threads on here about them. From what I understand they won't balance the system on their own, you still need correct line length, but they can help dial in the perfect pour once the system is balanced.

Most BMC offerings are lagers which tend to be better cold. If the craft beer you are drinking now are ales they can benefit from a little warmer temp, depending on personal taste.

1 teaspoon shouldn't hurt anything but you can probably use about 1/2 teaspoon.

IMO that's not too much. I get about the same in 12 oz bottles.

Good point, it's my beer fridge, don't want warm beer.

I was wondering if there was a negative reason not to chill starter wort in the fridge after boiling? I boil the starter in a stainless steel pot with the lid on so I'd think the inside of the pot would be steam sanitized meaning contamination shouldn't be a problem as long as I leave the lid...

That'll work. On #2 you don't have to do it gradually, I just do it that way because I ferment in a SS Brewtech Brew Bucket with FTSs and use a cooler with water and frozen gallon jugs as my cooling source so I have to go to the fermenter each morning to swap out jugs anyway.

If you are starting fermentation at 70 you shouldn't need to raise temp. I typically start at 65 and raise 1 degree per day up to 70 then just let it sit at there until done (I don't cold crash).

Instead of boiling wort try circulating immediately after flame out to sanitize, 2-5 minutes or until temp drops to 200 F then start chilling water. No problems with cavitation that way.

Nice setup @mongoose33! One question, since you go from blow off directly to keg what would you do in case of blow off? I suppose you'd just have to clean and sanitize the keg again and purge it using a different method?

I've used both a clip on trub dam and edge pickup diptube. I prefer the edge pickup. I haven't seen the TC rotating pick up tube so can't help you there but if your bulkhead has 1/2" male npt threads in the kettle Brew Hardware is where I got my edge pickup diptube.

Sorry if this has been asked and answered, I couldn't think up with a search phrase that came up with answers. I am planning out my upgrade to kegging and would like to include closed transfers in that plan. I ferment in a SS Brewtech Brew Bucket and use Norcal's CO2 Harvester (original...

Thanks for the replies everyone! The impression I am getting is the Stout is the way to go if you want a stainless steel cfc and do large batches. For those that do 5 gallon batches the Kegco could be a good choice for those on a budget but the Stout would be quicker if you can afford it. As for...