my 5th batch - some rookie questions

first, I have to say that my first batch tastes waaay better now, after 3 months then it tasted after 1 month (but it's all gone, I have only few bottles )

yesterday I brewed my 5th batch, and I finally hit 1.060 gravity that I was aiming for.

So I wanted to ask some things:

1. I took my OG reading after the wort was cooled down, just before I pitched the yeast. It was 1.060, but I just dropped sanitized hydrometer into the pot full of wort. Now, the wort was full of tiny particles (hops, barley, irish moss etc....) and I am afraid that these particles caused false reading. By my logic, they lifted the hydrometer up. Am I right or wrong?

2. Longer boil = higher gravity? Right or wrong?

3. After I pitched the yeast, in couple of hours, I had the biggest amount of trub ever. It occupied almost 1/4 of 6 gallon batch, which is really a lot. I'm afraid I will have less then 4 gallons of beer in the end.... I used whole leaf hops, and this is probably the reason. What to do with this, are there any ways to minimize the loss of beer when I rack to bottling bucket or secondary?

4. During the boil, I had a very thick foam on top of the wort, and the color of it seemed very ugly, it was dark grey metallic. I used only pale malt.....What is this???? Hops??? But they are green. I am very worried about this. I removed the most of it with a spoon, I hope I didn't make a mistake....


thanks everybody!

1. Solids floating in the wort won't change the gravity. Only things that are actually dissolved in solution will change the gravity. Don't worry.

2. In general, yes. Longer boiling = more evaporation = more concentrated wort = higher gravity.

3. Don't worry. Give it a few weeks and it'll all settle out into a nice cake on the bottom.

4. Krausen is ugly, nasty, funky looking stuff. Leave it be. Doubt you messed up your beer by spooning some of it off, so long as your spoon was sanitary and you were careful. People do what's called "top cropping" where they scoop yeast off the top of the krausen and use that to start another batch.

ChshreCat said:

1. Solids floating in the wort won't change the gravity. Only things that are actually dissolved in solution will change the gravity. Don't worry.

2. In general, yes. Longer boiling = more evaporation = more concentrated wort = higher gravity.

3. Don't worry. Give it a few weeks and it'll all settle out into a nice cake on the bottom.

4. Krausen is ugly, nasty, funky looking stuff. Leave it be. Doubt you messed up your beer by spooning some of it off, so long as your spoon was sanitary and you were careful. People do what's called "top cropping" where they scoop yeast off the top of the krausen and use that to start another batch.

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thanks for all the answers, but I am still afraid concerning 4th question. this thing formed on top of the pot during the boil and it really was metallic color, dark grey...

I used very old and odd crusher (which did a good job and I got a very good crush) but I made some modifications on it, and I am afraid that metal parts scrubbed each other into a fine metal dust that I couldn't see in the crushed grain, but might have been lifted up on top of the boiling wort in the krauzen...

I tasted it though and it didn't taste metallic, but still, this is very odd because I never had it.....