Few problems with my AG

[DoubleFisted]

I first of all had hop pellets and did not have a hop bag so I had to just put them in the beer without the hop bag. Is this going to be a problem? or can I strain them before I carbonize it? Second I put my wort chiller in 15 min before the end of the boil and when I turned on the hose the hose leaked and probably put about a quarter to half a gallon of water in my kettle with the wort. Is that going to be a problem? Third this was suppose to be a super light beer even when putting it in promash I put my ingredients in and it is suppose to be super light. It is in my glass fermenter and it is super super dark. I had 11.5 pounds of grain and I put 3.6 gallons of water in my mash tun with the grain, vorlaughed (not sure how to spell) it and then drained the rest into my boil kettle then took another 3 gallons of water at 170 degrees drained it slowly in the mash tun and at the same time it drained in my boil kettle. Was this the right thing to do?

 

[Double_D]

You can filter before carbonation yes. The water isn't a major problem but it wil dilute your final product. It always looks dark when it's in a large volume. The sparging sounds about right i guess?

 

[malkore]

1. I never use a hop sack for pellet hops, so yer fine.
2. those water amounts seem slightly low, like you'd barely get 6 gallons into the kettle, and then how much evaporation.
3. assuming the grains used were correct and gave you the right SRM in your brew software/calculations, to hard of a boil will darken the wort due to malliard reactions (sorta like a decoction but not as intense a change/reaction)...so if it was a fierce boil, turn the heat down a little next time.
4. my wort chiller leaked too because the vinyl hosed were submerged in the kettle. I added about 14" of copper tubing using a simple connector and sweat them together. Now it never leaks.

I had two brews where it did leak. One was perfectly fine (and actually got my volume back up from 4.5 gals due to high evaporation). The other batch was infected, but likely from brett, not the water that leaked in.

 

[DoubleFisted]

This is only my second AG and I have it in a glass carboy with a blow off tube. However it does not look right there are many multiple things floating around which I don't remember in my last batches. Also my krauzen looks pretty crazy too. Any help or comments?