One more topic: short boils.
I discovered www.hopsdirect.com and ordered 5 *pounds *of hop pellets a while back. For the first time in my homebrewing life, I have a plethora of hops and no longer need to carefully manage every little bag.
One of the brewing forums had the nugget that one could actually do a 15 minute boil for bitterness if you use enough hops. And of course can do the aroma hop additions. I have tried this in two different batches (a bitter and my fresh hop harvest ale) in the past week. It sure makes the end to end brewing time into a nice manageable hour or so. Steep the specialty grains, before the grains are done heat up the wort, add in malt, do the 15 minute hop boil, cool, into the fermenter and do the clean up.
Not sure on the taste front, but dang it reduces the time to make a batch into a nice, quick chunk of time. I’m not a fan of brew day taking up a big chunk of the day. And I’ve done a couple of BIAB batches and didn’t find that it makes better beer (for me at any rate).
Anyhoo, if the results are fine, I’m going to a short brew/more hops approach moving forward.