You are not lucky. You overpitch, which results in the carryover of a lot of dead cells. A properly pitched culture will not produce that much yeast. That is way beyond maximum cell density, even accounting for replacement cell reproduction during the stationary phase. The way to prove this phenomenon is to ferment in a clear fermenter. If you have anything in the bottom of the fermenter after active fermentation has started, it is either break or dead yeast cells. There is zero probability that seven gallons of wort will hold 1/2 gallon of yeast in suspension.
How do you chill? Do you use an immersion chiller or do you pump through a plate/counterflow chiller?
There may be some dead cells, a possibility. But there is little if any trub, and no break material.
My brewing technique employs only whole leaf hops. We have a triple filter system in the boil kettle, and it catches 99.9% of all the gunk that I do not want in my wort. This includes hot-break, and cold-break. And, the trub remains behind in the BK.
Only clean, crystal clear wort goes into the fermenter. I am anal about this, to the point of being a freak.
In this example, the wort was 1.087 OG. The yeast loved it! And reproduced at a healthy rate. This ale yeast strain is unique to me, in that it is soooo thick in viscosity. Thicker than peanut butter. It was a challenge to get it out of the SS Conical, and into my storage jar.
During the harvest process, the S-04 was hyper clean, no crud or debris that was visible to our eyes.
My procedure and technique has been born out in beer competitions. What I post here is proprietary to our brewing, so it is absolutely correct for our situation.
The rest of those on this forum obviously have other procedures and techniques that work for them. That is fine.
But going forward, we will stick with the brewing procedure that produced the beers the BJCP folks liked, and that won multiple awards for us. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
You are correct,
I am not lucky. The quality beer we make comes from dedicated hard work, long hours in the brew day, and skill developed over 3 decades.
Immersion chiller, copper. The chill process takes us about an hour, maybe longer. There is logic to this long chill time.
As always, thanks for your input.