Colorado Newbie, 1st brew and of course ??????'s

[dapozer]

Greetings all,
I have finished my first brew with the help of a buddy that has done 6 brews before. I think he didn't teach to well or was not taught himself that well. However here's the story: brewing brewers best hopnog 2009 American ipa.
The entire process went real well, real clean, stayed on the time schedule and is currently fermenting and has bubbles and yeast foam. However here are a few steps that did not happen: 1. we never opened up/cracked the grain. we opened plastic bag poured grain into teabag and steeped for 20 min. what is this going to do to the taste? 2. when adding water to wort we never really stirred this up, just 2.5 gal of wort, than 2.5 gal of water on top. 3. my og rating was 1.030 and the directions stated it should have been 1.048-1.056. It seems to be fermenting how it is supposed to and i plan a 3 week primary ferment then bottle to a 3 week sit then drink. Thoughts, did these 3 missed steps do anything to really hurt my first batch?
Thanks
Shawn

 

[jppostKW]

2 and three are tied together sugar stratification (not mixed well the yeasties will make their way thru the wort. #1 you might lose some complexity but it should turn out fine

RDWHAHB!!! (or good craft brew till yours is done)

 

[impatient]

this sound like a partial mash (extract and grain). If so, then cracking the grain is not a big deal. If it was a kit, it may have already been cracked.

Don't worry about it. It will taste like beer.

 

[dapozer]

not overly worried about the grains but the mixing has me stressed. oh well it will come out how it comes out. loved it and now trying to get another one together. Thanks

 

[jppostKW]

might put some ease into your mind!!!

 

[impatient]

Not to worry, the yeasties will do the mixin.

 

[dapozer]

that's cool....

 

[impatient]

that's cool....

Put it in a carboy and you can see that 2.
Next time not now!

 

[Tilldeath]

Firstly welcome to the brew world. Second where in Colorado do you live, I'll be doing a batch this Thursday and you're more than welcome to come over, I'm fairly new to this as well, done about 10 batches. I wouldn't worry too much on the grain, complexity in flavor is all you'll loose there. Not sure what happen on og maybe too much water added or not enough dme/lme, don't know what your yeast is so not sure how it will ferment out, I'd guess it will be a little drier though, and it wont be to high in alcohol. That being said, the brew should turn out good, and lower alcohol means you can drink more beer so you'll be ready to do another batch to replace this one sooner.

 

[JuanMoore]

The OG reading was probably off because the wort and water water weren't mixed together well, and your sample was more water than wort. You did correct the reading for temperature right? Nothing you mentioned will make a huge impact on the final outcome, so your beer should be just fine. Just try not worry about it too much.