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That's terrifying.

Extract beers tend to finish a little higher than all grain in my experience. The extract producers tend to favor a less fermentable wort for whatever reason. 1.020 is about what I would expect. If this is not your problem, you might look at yeast pitch rates. It could be that you aren't...

You could use debittered black malt. That's what they use in the cascadian porters to minimize the darker malt characteristics.

Let me ask you a stupid question because you just set off a red flag for me. Does the beer taste sweet or does it taste normal? I had this exact same problem recently, and it "started" when I bought a refractometer. I was beating my head against the wall trying to figure out what was going on...

Flaked wheat is unmalted. You're square. Looks like a strong recipe.

Tannins are what you're worrying about, but it shouldn't be a huge problem. It's such a small portion of your batch that even if you were in danger of extracting tannins the taste would be pretty negligible. The important thing to remember about tannin extraction is that it occurs at a...

Base malt is base malt. One lb of a different type is not going to effect your recipe much.

Yeah, you can go "no chill". The Australians do it to conserve water apparently. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/No_Chill_Method

You're probably right. It's been a year and a half now. It's time to move on. An Irish red with 8% alcohol might not be style appropriate, but doctor's orders supersede beer style specifications.

I think you're looking at off flavors with temperatures that high, not dead yeast. I could be wrong though.

Yeah, definitely go for it. The one thing I would recommend is not to love the recipe for your first batch. My first all grain was supposed to be an Irish red, but I missed my temps and ended up with a super low efficiency. The beer was watery, and I haven't been able to bring myself to brew...

Sounds like a cool experiment. If you really wanted a traditional Irish stout, then you're going to be disappointed, but it certainly won't taste like Satan's anus, unless Satan's anus tastes like banana and bubble gum esters. One thing you could do would be to ferment lower, say 62, to try to...

I tend to get different efficiency from different grain bills. Classic example: this weekend I brewed on back to back days. The first day I got 80+% efficiency when the grain bill was all barley. The second day, when I used a few pounds of rye, I got 74%. If you're changing your mill settings...

You should just spend $100 and buy your own mill. Do it fast, like pealing off a band aid.

I would say RDWHAHB is the best advice for this situation. On your lower than normal gravity, it's possible that it's down to your mill not crushing the rye quite as well as it would barley because rye is smaller.

The danger with doing a finer crush is that you may have lautering problems. The finer the crush, the better the efficiency, but if you crush too fine you will get a stuck sparge.

1.082 is about 66% efficiency. It's not great, but as long as you can make a reasonable prediction about your efficiency, you should be able to scale your recipes appropriately. If you want to focus on upping your efficiency, you should be looking at things like the quality of your crush, how...

Well, your recipe is dialed in for 75% efficiency, which you obviously aren't getting. You can up your grain bill to compensate, or try to bring your efficiency up.

Tannin extraction is a function of pH and temperature. As the gravity gets lower, the pH approaches neutral and tannin extraction is more likely. If you can control your pH, and as long as you keep the temperature below 170, you won't get much tannin extraction. Having said that, the potential...

I think you've somehow created some sort of malevolent entity. It's not safe to drink. You probably shouldn't even have it inside your house.