Aspis Hoplon in primary

Aspis Hoplon was a success up until the last steps. I hit the temps and volume perfectly. If you haven't brewed a stout before, do yourself a favor and try it: the smell of the wort is delicious.

Problems:

1. Second time using whirlfloc, which makes some crazy coagulation. Am I using too much for a 3G batch? Can't really split the tablet. The problem is that, to speed cooling, I whirlpooled the wort while chilling, which stirred up the trub a bit. The filter clogged nearly immediately every time I tried to siphon to primary. I have heard you should wait after cooling for 30 minutes or so for the trub to drop out, but a recent infestation of fruit flies had me worried to leave it. Not to mention, it was midnight and I was tired.
2. Usually I keep the primary cool by putting it in a cooler with water and ice packs. At the beginning, I use ice to get it extra cool. This time, I just used ice packs and it did not get cool enough (75 by morning). Will I get fusels and bananas? Probably. Oh well.

Mountainbeering in bottles

Bottled "Mountainbeering" two days ago. Little nervous that I used some stale StarSan, it was a bit cloudy which means it's either shot or very near it. Most of the stuff was pretty clean and I'm trying not to get too nervous about it. I'm beginning to think that contamination is more difficult than portrayed, although sanitation is easy and should be maintained regardless.

I had a taste and it was quite good. Different hops than P4P imparted a fruitier flavor. The added salts may have improved the hop character although there seemed to be a perceptible saltiness.

Tried a new trick to filter the wort to the bottling bucket. Kept a tea filter under the hose, and the hose low enough to be under the surface of liquid to minimize oxygen exposure. Seemed to trap a good bit of trub and the beers are clear enough.

Wednesday I'm doing Aspis Hoplon.