Techniques and Observations

New Post new topic.... sort of:
Hop Steeping/ The Hop Percolator method:
This worked out really well, this gave me a good aroma from less hops. I kept trub out of the fermenter, and gained an additional half litre or so in the fermenter, all be it, there was no wort with this.
The bad things about this process is possibly hops flavour, especially in an IPA there should be a good teeth scraping flavour almost. (I'm not sure how else to describe it) the Aroma out of the "Percolator" was very very grassy, but has cleaned up quite nicely. NZ Hops can have this effect, but I can't taste anything like that. This is something I'd like to try with the Epic Pale ale recipe listed here, to see what the differences are:
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/can-you-brew-recipe-epic-pale-ale-194085/
Cold Steeping Method:
This was probably the pick of the processes used, and considering there was noboil in this particular process its worked out surprisingly well. I have no idea whether this is actually supposed to be  boiled or not. I assume it should be, based on the sanitation situation. Something I'd try again. Not sure I'd do it for a Porter though, as you want much more of that malt flavour in there.

Lastly;
Yeast Changes:
This was an unintended experiement, but what an interesting experiment it was.
US-05 vs WLP090, two different yeasts sure, both intended to be neutral style yeasts. but this is Liquid vs dry. and i'll say now that the dry won.
Now I used the dry in the smal black Batch and the Liquid in the main batch.
Liquid: This is a high Flocc yeast, and while its very clean fermenting and rapid as well, it definitely stripped some of the hop juice from the final brew, because of the high floccuation of the yeast. This also finished at 1.014 and tastes relatively dry.
Dry: I didn't check the gravity, but it did taste slightly maltier/ sweeter, it tasted better, and it the yeast swishes around a bit more than the WLP090, but it retains the hopps much better. more flavour, same aroma.
I'll be conducting more experiements soon, with 3 different west coast style strains.
US-05
BRY-97, Danstar west Coast
and a new one from Mangrove Jack, if I can get my hands on it.

surgery in a week or two, will update as time goes on, i.e. Belgian IPA.