Droopy
The problem with people like Beer-Simp and Brulosopher is ignorance. On the www to a very large extent anything the reader thinks sounds plausible carries equal weight. Without any qualification or systematic research, it all appears to come down to I think it tastes OK and so do my mates so it must be right!
Luckily brewing is a natural process that wants to happen and we are working with yeast that has a pretty powerful evolutionary imperative to survive. People have been deliberately making alcohol from grain since the stone age, starting around the industrial revolution we have been systematically researching brewing and I would contend that at this point we can and often do have access to the best beer made in human history. We know what ingredients it takes and the best way to process them, we know more about yeast than ever before, how it acts and the effect that has on the beer we want to make.
Just to address your three points above, including the one you opted out on.
Yeast
How many times have you seen reference to Chris White showing people how much yeast is killed just by pitching into wort, rather than hydrating it properly? Personally I'm a little skeptical and do remember he has a vested interest.
Some yob saying he can dump his yeast into a hot wort with no ill-effects is even more unbelievable, fortunately for him even if he was killing 90% of his yeast the beer will still get brewed. Would the beer benefit? Unlikely, as we can measure the metabolic effects of brewing hotter/cooler - if you don't believe me do a split batch of a hefeweizen brewed at both ends of the recommended temperature range - you won't need a gas chromatograph to tell the difference.
Demonstrably pitching/ferment temperature will affect beer.
Racking/Secondary
If you are brewing Ale you don't need to rack beer. The qualifier being that you have put enough healthy yeast into the wort to complete the ferment before deleterious effects from aging/dying yeast (and a few other aging effects) kick in. Again these are well understood and are described in fault diagnosis tables, read up Protease A, Autolysis, Carbonyls and auto-oxidisation... there are plenty. The harm done to beer flavour and head formation/retention are again measurable and quantifiable.
At a home brewing level there are clearly some risks in racking as well as possible benefits, doesn't mean you Should or Shouldn't rack. It means you need to understand the results of the choices you make, and what those choices are based on.
Whirlpooling
Clearly you or Beer-Chimp have no idea what is happening in a whirlpool. It isn't the stirring it into spinning but the slowing down that forms the trub cone. Stirring it any longer, too vigorously or too fast (over3m/s) than necessary will have negative effects on the trub removal/cone formation, mostly by breaking up flock particles and the first rule of flock is "the bigger it is the faster it falls" (read up on Stokes Law), stirring too much will also introduce more oxygen and, yes, HSA is real, and again we can measure the effects.
I will do Simp the courtesy of assuming he isn't a total fuckwit and that he means - establish rotation then leave it for 30 minutes to settle - with a decent kettle fining that may be excessive but any other interpretation would be seriously wrong headed.
Short cuts DO reduce quality, not just in brewing, Christ if you were painting the lounge room walls - the preparation is more important than the painting. If your first concern is "Cheap Quick Alcohol" do what you like - if you want good beer do it right!
Mark
