I've also been having trouble finding enough consecutive hours to do an all grain brew day. Extract can make some good beers though.
Today I kegged a light dme (and a little sugar) + vista hops + K97 pale that's been in the fermenter for 3 weeks. Sample tasted great!
I also swapped my beverage...
Another option, particularly if you don’t already have the controller setup like @Bobby_M is to get some gigaworts from northern brewer. Double walled 15l urn with a built in controller, perfect for 8-10L biab. They are often on sale for $199 (including right now).
I use whirlfloc in all of my beers (pretty much the same thing as protafloc) and I can get both a nice brite beer + long lasting foam. The biggest improvement for me was adding a 15 minute mash step at 72c. A rest at this temperature forms a lot more glycoproteins, which are a big part of foam...
Well earned indeed. My recommendation for beer in central Tokyo: https://goodbeerfaucets.jp/
The owner is a huge Belgian beer nerd and they always have a great selection.
Sounds like a delicious beer. I like a small amount of really light crystal (I usually use great western 15) in my blonde. It adds some sweetness without too much caramel flavor or color.
If you have one, you can just fill the balloon with a co2 tank instead of trying to time the swap to fill it with fermentation co2. Then you can just wait till fermentation is done, fill the balloon, swap it, and then crash.
I've used these: https://www.morebeer.com/products/stainless-steel-hop-tube-chain.html with the basic floating dip tubes as well as a standard dip tube without issues.
Scott Janish does the opposite and dry hops loose with a stainless filter around the dip tube...
Like you, I have a combination of the torpedo ball floats and flotit 2.0. I use the flotit kegs when I want to keg hop a bitter or an American IPA, and it works great. I routinely do 2oz loose and I've done up to 8oz with no problems.