Hops in fermenter

So my friend and I brewed our first beer. In the recipe we had it said nothing about straining it before putting it in the fermenter. Should we have strained it first? We were making an IPA.

your fine... straining would have helped aerate and remove some gunk from your beer, but no harm done. You can leave that hop waste and other trub material behind when you transfer to a secondary. sometimes this is done with a filter attached to the autosiphon... even if you have some hop floaties in your beer it won't do anything - just isn't the prettiest thing

Your hop debris will settle out first with the yeast settling on top of it. Give it 2 to 3 weeks in the fermenter before you add the aroma hops (dry hopping) and give them a week to 10 days before you bottle. You can dry hop right in the primary fermenter or you can transfer the beer to a secondary for dry hopping. I like mine to stay right in the primary fermenter.

When it is time to bottle you may have some hops floating about in your beer. I slip a paint strainer bag over the bottom end of the racking cane or autosiphon and shove that down into the fermenter to filter the hop pieces out before they get to the bottling bucket.