Couple question on my last batch i brewed

[rynb15]

Been lurking for awhile but first post. This is great site with lots of info. So I moved up from mr beer and brewed my first extract(brewers best american ale) with steeping grains,hops the other day. Couple of questions. It has a brew day schedule to keep track of the boil times. Now when i would add a can of LME is would stop the boil and take say 5-10min to start boiling again. I did not count this time for the boil. So my total time with the pot on the stove was longer than the 1 hr boil time after adding ingredients a couple times. Is this right? And when I poured the wort in to the fermenting bucket I tried to keep most of the trub out. But there was a decent amount of wort I couldnt get because it was mixed with trub. About the amount of a beer. I didnt have anything to strain it. I will next time. I just dont know if either of my questions will have an effect on my brew. My OG was .042. I was supposed to be around .051. But I read on here that the OG reading can be off due to the wort not being mixed up all the way. Anyways I still had a great time brewing and love the hobby. Thanks

 

[skillzman1]

well I'm pretty new to this as well....but as far as the OG goes..make sure your wort is cooled to 70 degrees before you measure with the hydrometer.Higher temps will give false reading.
A buddy of mine was brewing and just adding 'what looked like the right amount of water' to the wort...but you dont just automatically bring the batch up to 5 gallons or more....bring it up to approx.4.5 gallons and test the OG...it should read high...then add a little water until its where you need it. He did this but neglected to mix the water and the wort...the reading was way low...then we mixed the batch...and it was close to spot on,we adjusted it with 1/2 gallon of water to perfect.
Another lesson I learned was leaving the wort in the boil pot and cooling it from a boil down to approx. 100* in a tub full of ice water...then adding precooled reserve water and lowering it to 70* or so ...then add it to the brewing bucket and pitch yeast..versus putting boiled wort in the bucket -adding cooled water-then trying to cool the plastic bucket...that takes forever and throws off the flavor...newbie mistake on my part.

The others will have to chime in about the other questions.

 

[RM-MN]

Your boil time is to isomerize the hop oils to get the correct bitterness. When your boil stops, the isomerization stops too so you only count the time that the wort is actually boiling. You did this right.

The next time you brew you can just dump everything in the pot into your fermenter. The trub is hop particles and proteins. They settle out to the bottom of the fermenter pretty quickly and don't change the flavor of the beer.

I think you are on your way to becoming a brewer. Try to keep the fermenter cool as it makes better beer. I like to have my fermenter in a room where it is between 60 and 65 degrees for a week (it takes the yeast longer to ferment when it is cooler but it throws off less weird flavors) and then bring it to a 70-72 degree room for the rest of the time. I leave mine in the fermenter for 3 to 4 weeks and I think I get better beer for that but you might not want to wait that long. Use your hydrometer to be sure your fermentation is complete before you bottle though.

 

[rynb15]

Thanks for the info guys. Thats a good idea about checking the og at 4.5 gallons and going from there. Well not just time to sit and wait.