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Chemist by education, worked in Big Oil for a while now in consumer products as a food scientist.

You can cold crash to drop out most of the yeast, but it won't get rid of all of it...just put bottles in the fridge for a day or two before cracking them open. They'll be clear of yeast then.

I think the OP has pretty much been covered, but to throw my experience in: I was given a 10g cooler when I use as a BIAB mash tun...might seem silly, but lets me use my kettle as an HLT. I mash in the cooler, then pull the grains out and sparge in the kettle for 15 minutes. I routinely get...

That looks correct. Top fermenting vs bottom fermenting is really misleading as a description of ale vs lager. It should really be surface fermenting vs subsurface fermenting.

Well, in that case, it's gonna be really close.

Depending ABV, temperatue, and a few other things it may or may not be ready. I'm guessing you bottled yesterday? ~70 degrees, and as long as the alcohol isn't too high, it should carb by then. Personally, I never crack a bottle before 2.5 weeks, but really prefer to wait 3. I agree with the...

I sanitize all my bottles in the dishwasher. The key is a good rinse with a heated drying cycle to get some good steam. My dishwasher does not have a specific "sanitize" option, but it gets hot, produces good steam, and, well, I've never had an issue.

8 months is still pretty young, however you should at least have a hint of sourness. Commercial dregs would be good. Maltodextrine is also a good idea. I really surprised that between adding the lambic blend and the rosalare blend that you aren't noticing any sourness yes. I'd probably...

I don't understand the idea of a supposed "Extract vs All Grain" debate. Why are they at odds with each other? What's the point? Did Extract sleep with All Grain's sister and never call her back? I mean, at least that'd be something worth fighting about. <----------Don't put me in a box, man.

I don't think anybody will argue that. But glass sinks. All the OP has to do is be careful not to suck from the bottom of the fermenter when racking and leave the last 1" or so of beer on top of the yeast to be extra careful. When your thermometer breaks, you can poor out your 5g of beer...

Unless your floating thermometer is 10 years old (or you specifically ordered a mercury thermometer), then it's not mercury, but ethanol. Bottom line, continue as normal.

As mentioned, use less water/longer, more vigorous boil. Part of homebrewing is learning your specific brewing conditions. It's possible, for example, that you don't experience as much boil off as the kit assumes. Add, say, a half gallon less than you've been adding or boil for an extra 15-30...

Yep, brew another beer, low to medium gravity. Once it's down, rack this one onto it's yeast cake. 1.102 definitely needs a hefty starter to get all the way down.

A little bit more history would be helpful, as in: Recipe? OG? FG? Time in fermenter? Stuff like that.

Mmmmm, a schwarzbier. Good idea. However, a maibock seems perfect too. If I went the maibock route, I'd probably only use 2 cups of slurry or so, which would minimize the smoke flavor. The rauchbier is fairly subtle.

Well, it also scrubs oxygen. Australian brewers use it to control any effects of hot side aeration (or mash-wort oxygenation, as I think they call it). As far as flavor issues. The chemical itself has a strong sulfur smell, but it the chemical breaks down in 6 to 24 hours so you really...

So.... Brewed my first lager about two months ago, and it's getting close to time to bottle. I have two questions: 1)Given 2 months of lagering, I'm assuming the yeast cake is still viable to reuse for another lager much as we all do with ale yeast. Am I correct? 2)Saflager W34/70: I...

:p I'll know it a week or so. I've bottle conditioned an 11% without issue.

I feel like your drill would hate you.

I've got a black DIPA bottle conditioning right now that's 13.13%. Step mashed: 30 min @ 122F, 60 min @ 161F, batch sparged @ 168 Used Denny's Favorite, which Wyeast list at 10% max, but it finished the beer out at 1.017 down from 1.120.