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Pacman and brett are highly attenuative to begin with. Brett needs special measures to prevent cross-contamination. Personally, I throw out anything plastic or rubber that touches a brett beer. You might want to do the same to get rid of your purported 3711 infection, though I've never had a...

You want to maximize gas exchange at the liquid-air interface to deliver the most oxygen possible. The best way to do this is to vortex. You could try a longer stir bar, but I'm not sure how well it would work with a StirStarter. I use a lab-grade stir plate, a 5000mL flask, and a thick...

There's one distributor who carries fresh Pacman year-round and sells it to LHBS's. I got some from Rebel Brewer a while back, but they seem to be out of stock at the moment. Fortunately, my LHBS has a reliable supply of it. I use it nearly exclusively for American styles.

I liked 3522, but the esters were diminished when compared to the more popular Belgian strains like 3787 or 1214. It also flocculated unusually well, which was more of an observation than a problem. I plan to use 3787 or 1388 in my next Belgian series. I don't recall the dates on my packs...

Now that I think on it, a word of warning: if you use brett in a wooden barrel you will never be able to sanitize it away. Barrel aging and brett go well together, but you'll get varying degrees of brett-ishness in future batches.

I used 3522 for a series of belgians recently - blonde, tripel, dubbel, quad - and observed the same sulfurous odor. It went away after a few weeks of primary conditioning and was not detectable in the final product.

You shouldn't get any off-flavors if you've hit final gravity before raising the temp. Most of the yeast-derived flavors are produced during the early parts of fermentation. I often do this when switching from an american ale series (58F with pacman yeast) to a belgian series (pitch at 65...

I like Wyeast 3787 for my quads. You could also consider adding some brettanomyces in the barrel - either from Orval dregs or a wyeast pack. I also recommend dropping the mash temp by 2-3 degrees. 151 is pretty high for a Belgian; you've got to go lower to get a good "deceptively strong"...

I add leaf hops to the primary without a bag. I use bags on the rare occasion that I dry hop with pellets.

+1 for fermenting cool, and for a HUGE starter. You will need a 12 liter starter with one fresh smack pack, or 5 liters with two packs if you use liquid. Aerate the wort well. I would definitely use oxygen to get full and rapid attenuation. Don't use WLP099 as your primary strain. In my...

The Barley Crusher instructions specifically say not to use belts. Not sure why, but I haven't felt like tempting fate... BC also makes motorized mills, if you want to go that route. http://www.barleycrusher.com/barleycrushermicro.php

I had a huge dark strong ale, 1.090-ish, that I added brett to at kegging. FG after normal fermentation with WY3787 was 1.018. Over three months the gravity dropped to 1.006. It ended up very carbed, as you may imagine, but I think it's appropriate for the style to have an effervescent body...

Definitely try brett claussenii. White Labs sells it year-round as WLP645, perfect for barleywines and old ales.

These are good points: sufficiently low OG, minimized trub, lighter beer, etc will lessen the negative effects on a repitched batch. However, the best growth environment for yeast is an unhopped 1.040 OG starter with a pinch of yeast nutrient. How many of your beers fit that bill? You...

Repitching with or onto unwashed yeast cakes is a bad habit that guarantees some degree of off-flavors. Wash it, or use fresh yeast.

A quick and dirty way to get a better crush is to grind the grain twice. I did this out of laziness before I dug out my spark plug gapper and tightened up my barley crusher. I went from 70% to 80% efficiency immediately.

From recollection, Beersmith does not take mash temperature into account when predicting final gravity. It routinely predicts FGs of 1.014-1.018 and up for my belgians; in reality I get 1.008-1.010. Sugar should be about 10-15% of your total grain bill. That, combined with a low mash...

How's your grain grind? Do you use the mill at the homebrew shop or your own? If it's the shop's mill, it's probably set to give a coarser grind and thus lower efficiencies. Hah, triple post with the same idea.

You won't get the characteristic "punch" from bittering hops unless you bring sulfate up. Your sulfate is barely present. Here in Chicago, the water has a slightly high pH and not enough sulfate for pale ales, so I use gypsum to add calcium (lower pH) and sulfate (better hops). I aim for 150...

The yellow flame is a clear indication that you're producing CO. I've noticed that the cheap turkey fryers do this after a few uses, and especially if you let it get gunked up or rusted.