I left a lot of the gunk from the boil in during ferm.

I recently brewed my first batch of beer (sitting in fermentor for 4 days now) and simply looked over one of the steps. As soon as i cooled the wart after the 1 hour boil with hops, i rapid-cooled it and transferred it into a 6 gal bucket with the pellet hop gunk. I did not filter or remove any of it. I got bubbles on the airlock within 4 hours without using a starter. I should also note that this is the blonde ale all grain from BMW. I measured the initial gravity and it showed potential alcohol by volume to be ~5% or 1.040 so i was pretty close.

My question to you is whether or not that hop gunk will effect the taste of the beer, and how so? Also, today being day 4 of fermentation i am seeing the rate of the airlock bubbling decrease to once every 30 seconds. The temperature remains ~68F. What day do you guys start seeing a decrease in CO2 production similar to this?

I used:
1 oz glacier hops 60 min
1 oz glacier hops 15 min
WLP060

 

Simply put: don't worry about it. Let it bubble away .

 

Fermentation goes at it's own rate based on a lot of variables. There is no set time it should be at level x or level y. Just let it go until it's done which in a beer that size will be a week or so. Then let it sit and clean up after itself for another week or two.

There will be no problem with transferring the hop material and hot break material over to the fermentor. The yeast will actually use some of the hot break proteins as food. In the end everyting will settle out on the bottom of the fermentor.

 

Does anyone think that, like when you dry hop for too long, the beer could be grassy from all of the hop material?

I recently did a No Chill straight into the fermenter, hops and all. The beer is still aging in bottles, but at bottling time, I didn't detect any grassy flavors. This was a hoppy porter with a lot of roasty character to it, so that could mask some grassy taste if there is any.

Of course, even with some grassy flavors from the hops, I am sure the beer will taste just fine.

Has anyone gotten grassy flavors from doing this?

 

Thanks for the quick reply guys, always encouraging with replies like that.

Hopefully this comes out well considering it is my first attempt at beer and all grain at that.

 

All grain on your first batch? I'm impressed you hit your OG - you have done well, the yeast will do their part if you treat them right. (aka
Leave them alone at the right temperature).

 

Hah yeah I was surprised too. I must say the glacier hops are definitely giving off an attractive smell.

 

You should be just fine, I had citra leaf hops plug my dip tube on my last batch so I just dumped the entire kettle into the fermenter. Had my first pint off the keg on the 4th, its a darn tasty beer.

 

I always leave the hop gunk in, never get grassy notes. the fact that the hops were boiled prevents it i think.

 

I always transfer all the trub and stuff - if you use Whirfloc right when there's about 5 minutes left in the boil, all the break turns into egg drop soup and settles out very quickly.

 

A little update, this is how my first AG brew came out (Blonde ale):