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Presumably this is some sort of Imperial/Baltic porter? 1.078 is way to strong for garden-variety porter. I agree with progmac about caramel malts; 2.5 lbs seems way too much. I would use less of a darker crystal -- maybe 1 pound of 120 L British crystal.

I agree that the yeast is the likely culprit here. I am overly sensitive to phenolic flavors, and find them off-putting even in many commercial Belgian beers. Another common source of phenolic off-flavors is tannin from grain husks, extracted from over-sparging, or sparging at high pH.

No idea, but some possibilities: 1) More gunk from the primary went into the 3 gallon container in the first place. 2) The smaller container is more susceptible to temperature swings, and a temperature swing caused the yeast to drop out of suspension. 3) Optical illusion: you're looking...

Sure, but a little grain material in the kettle is harmless: there's no tannin extraction at wort pH (otherwise decoction mashing would be a disaster) and any solids drop out with the hot break. You might get a modest increase in efficiency by running the extra water through the system, but...

Regardless of what you call it, the technique you describe should work fine. Give yourself some leeway on efficiency the first couple of times you do it, but in my experience it can be done reproducibly. Personally, I'd skip the vorlauf altogether. The only good reason for it is to set the...

That appears to be a mash paddle. I can see how they would make that out of less heat-tolerant plastic than they would a kettle spoon.

It sounds very interesting, and I'd be eager to hear about results of anyone trying the technique. IIRC, ancient Sumerian brewing involved adding bread instead of grain, but I don't know whether starch conversion happened during the baking, or afterwards by the action of molds (similar to...

The first time I used Special B, almost 20 years ago, I added a pound to a brown ale -- probably 8 - 10% of the grain bill -- and it came out like prune juice. With a more recent brown ale I was more restrained -- about 2% of the grain bill -- but it still came out more raisiny than I wanted...

Definitely Special B -- a mistake I've made more than once.

My batch-sparge efficiency increased when I switched from a manifold to a hose braid. I started with a long braid (~18 inches), but I would get inconsistent results. I shortened it to about 4 inches, and I now hit my numbers every time. What I think was happening was that the long braid was...

I share your skepticism, but I rarely make anything north of 1.060. If I was a high-gravity aficionado, I might give pure O2 more serious consideration. (I actually just added a simple in-line Venturi areator, but that's as far as I'll go for now.)

Ha, I just did a "clean out the cupboard" IPA last weekend... I think just using it all would make a great beer (except not that much Crystal -- cut that back to no more than half a pound). Mash low, bitter with the Centennial, toss in the mystery hops with 15' boil time left, ferment cool...

Once the temperature drops a bit, your wort becomes bacteria heaven. It's good sanitation practice to put the lid on the kettle as soon as boiling ends and chilling begins.

One of my favorite quotes (supposedly from a Physicist): "If you have a thermometer, you know the temperature. If you have two thermometers, you're confused." IME, you can substitute "pH meter" for "thermometer" above and have an equally accurate statement.

It's a different product. Flaked wheat looks a bit like oatmeal, and can added directly to the mash. Cracked wheat comes as hard little kernals, and needs to be cooked first to gelatinize the starch. Given that, you can probably get away with substituting one for the other, using equivalent...

It's two different ways of saying the exact same thing: To the sensitivity limit of the tests they performed, they found no contaminants. Fermentis is being more open about it, by specifying what their sensitivity limits are. White Labs is not being dishonest, just less informative.

The sugars produced at lower temperatures are simple and fully fermentable. Raising the temperature after they are produced won't make any difference -- the sugars already produced won' go away, and they won't change to more complex, less fermentable sugars. Going from high to low might make a...

It has more to do with gravity (ie, sugar concentration) than it does time. When sugar concentration is high enough, yeast will ferment even in the presence of oxygen -- hence, open fermentation works. But when sugar concentration drops low enough, if oxygen is present the yeast will switch...

You'd probably be OK with a bucket, but avoid this method with carboys. I tried it once, but enough fermentation had already occurred that there was a bunch of CO2 already in the wort. When I shook the carboy, it went off like a warm bottle of Champagne!

The braid coming up off the bottom is the only problem I've had with it. I shortened the braid to about 4-inches. It's just as efficient, and seems less likely to get displaced by stirring. With a batch sparge you really don't need to drain from every point of the bed, as you do with a fly...