I hade the same type of experience last month with an S-23 yeast cake. Not completely solid like yours, but it was a persist 1.5" layer that required a high pressure hose to remove.
No worries dude - you will totally overcome this setback.
I hit a similar bump in 2009 and learned plenty of lessons from it. Stay positive (I bought a motorcycle and played more golf), and establish strategies so you can see what is working or what is not.
Two major annoyances.
The company parrot - the guy that receives the company or department wide e-mail (that we all get) and forwards it to the whole department with nothing but "FYI" added in.
Slow & formal chatters - we use chat software for quick informal communication. The folks that...
No need to worry about the differences between a hard days work and working hard for days - each have their stresses depending on how folks apply themselves.
Food safe drum liners are relatively easy to find:
http://www.usplastic.com/mobile/item.aspx?itemid=23747
The question I have not yet been able to answer is whether or not a liner is 'beer safe' for multiple or extended use.
Ball vs Pin is the connector type for the gas an liquid posts. These can be changed as the post is screwed on.
Due in part to the inherent height of pin lock connectors, a keg that was originally a pin lock will be slightly shorter and wider that a keg that started life as a ball lock.
Take...
I have witnessed this in both ales and lagers when the yeast pitch was delayed for cooling (or when I forgot to buy yeast). My uneducated guess is that it has to do with cold break and hop oils clumping together.
For the purposes of carbonation, there is no benefit in orientation, as the CO2 is being produced in the liquid where it will be absorbed if sufficient pressure or low enough temperature is present to increase the saturated gas volume.
I prefer not to lay bottles on the side as I do not...
did you experience a persistent change, or temporary change?
The instructions I received with my Blichmann indicated that repositioning the brewmometer would result in a temporary 1-2 degree change.
No problem. I have some bulk hops in the freezer that are almost a year old, and they still smell and taste great.
Any hops that you are worried about can be subjected to sniff and hop tea tasting to gauge their viability before using.
If you run fans all the time, the the external chamber will be within a few degrees of the freezer. To hit a specific temperature, the fans need to run off a temp controller (and the target temp needs to be warmer than the freezer set temp).