Transfer wort into carboy

This may be a total hosebag question, but I'm wondering and have to ask.

When you transfer the wort into the fermenter, should you filter it?

I've only brewed one batch so far, and when I transferred the wort to my carboy, I went raw-dog, unfiltered, and left the hops and thick goodness in with it. Was this a mistake? Should I have filtered it out, or is this ok.

I just can't seem to find any info on the subject. Maybe I should have used a mesh bag for the hops, but I don't really know. Thanks in advance.

I wouldn't worry about it. You get the same type of mess when you dry-hop in the secondary (I never use a bag when dry-hopping). I've only been doing this a couple years, so I'm sure some more experienced people may put in their 2 cents, but I really don't think it matters in terms of flavor/contamination. Everything in your boil is sterilized. When you rack it, you will probably leave most of the hops behind anyway.

However, I do always run my wort through a sterilized collinder when I get it into the fermenter. It's just a lot easier to rack when you don't have hop pieces floating in your beer. I've gotten a hop flower or two stuck in my racking cane after dry-hopping before.

It's just one of those brewer's preference things, really. IT won't effect the final product one bit. Some dump everything in the fermenter, some strain, and some rack off the wort once it's been cooled with their autosiphon into the fermenter. Relax.

There's more than one way to skin the brewing cat, and they all work fine.

Just depends on when you want to go to the hassle. I have a big metal strainer that I put over the top of my primary that I pour the beer through (as I don't use hop bags either, I'd rather let them dance around in the kettle) and I like to use that going into the primary simply because it means there is less sludge that I have to worry about sucking up when I transfer it. It's not going to affect the flavour of the final beer one way or the other, it just depends on how you like doing it.