Thanks again for the replies.
I am in Oregon City. I'd be happy to accept any hands on assistance that is offered. Covid makes this tricky, of course.
The RO water I get is from the Glacier Water vending machines. It goes through carbon filtration and reverse osmosis. My tap water is very chlorinated. I tried getting around it by throwing in some metabisulfite the night before and letting it sit. But I was still getting what I think were off flavors. And since I didn't know the actual water profile of my tap water I figured I'd just use RO water. And it would allow me to build a water profile from scratch.
As for water profile: I almost always use the "yellow/amber/brown/black balanced" profile in Bru N' Water for whatever color the spreadsheet estimates the color is. Typically I have been using recipes with a two row, vienna, and a little victory malt. I basically copy Brulosophy's Hop Chronicles recipes.
When I've popped the yellow beers open, even after a month, I don't usually see any darkening. I will look more closely the next time I open a bottle. But the color seems to be stable.
I have been bottling straight from the fermenter (I installed spigots on some buckets and I got a Little Big Mouth Bubbler). I always use a short piece of hose and a bottling wand. After the bottles are filled I cap them with oxygen absorbing caps. I've started squirting the wine preserve gas into the head space, per a suggestion on another thread here.
I have been throwing the dry hop charge into the bucket while fermentation is still ongoing. Airlock activity typically resumes within a couple of minutes. I started using larger hop bags to allow for more surface area contact with the dry hops.
I have been concentrating on flameout additions recently. I've tried several variations on this. I've tossed the flame out hops (often close to an ounce for a one gallon batch for just the flameout addition) as soon as I switch off the stove. I've thrown them in at 150 degrees. I've thrown them in at 120 degrees. Sometimes I sit every few minutes. Sometimes I let them sit there, untouched, for thirty minutes or more. Even without trying to chill the wort the temperature will drop even so. But it usually doesn't get below 120-100 degrees in half an hour.
After I've chilled the wort all the way down I then run it through the paint strainer. I have to stir the wort for several minutes to separate the hops from the liquid. Then it goes into the fermenter, gets yeast pitched and is sealed up. These buckets seal pretty well. I can't smell fermentation going on. I can only see it in the airlock.
I haven't tasted the wort before bottling. I'll need to start doing that. But I do sniff it a lot and it often has a fairly hoppy odor going into the fermenter. And I would think the dry hopping would reinforce that.
I've noticed that I have better hop flavor retention with the older, piney hops like cascade, centennial, chinook, and ctz. The Janet's Brown Ale, for example, turned out better than most. I have the worst hop flavor retention with the newer fruity hops like citra, mosaic, and galaxy. Which is a shame because I really like those hops.
I did notice something disturbing when I did a flame out addition the other day. I weighed out the mosaic hops and they smelled great. Fresh, pungent, fruity. I tossed them into the wort. Twenty minutes later the wort did not smell nearly as pungent as the hops did before I put them in. That might mean nothing.
The lid on my kettle is not completely air tight but I used to just use a splatter screen to cover the kettle. So the lid has to be an improvement.
I'm not trying to make an NEIPA here (though I like those). I'd be satisfied to make a normal, moderately hoppy pale ale.
As I said: it has to be something I am doing wrong. And from what I've read it really shouldn't be this complicated. I must be screwing up in some epic, boneheaded way.
Edit: I'm planning on making the clone of Bell's Two Hearted tomorrow. This has hop additions at 45 minutes, 30 minutes, and a dry hop. I am hoping this will test whether my flameout practices are a problem. Since there are no flameout additions.
Does Brewtan B do anything? I've seen conflicting instructions on how to use it, when to use it, compatibility with irish moss, and effectiveness. I have some a packet on hand.