Hops in the fermentor?

[tfmcmenemy]

Hey everyone. I just finished setting up fermentation on my first beer ever, an IPA. Basically I have two questions with two problems I ran into. First, as I was cooling my wort, I dropped a frozen water bottle in it. Fearing that it would get contaminated, I brought it back to a boil to kill of anything. My question is, do you think that the extra boil time will in make my beer taste bad?

Second problem... After the wort cooled, I decided to siphon it into the fermenter, to try and reduce the amount of grains from the bottom of the pot. I had used hops pellets in my brew, and even when I siphoned it in to my fermenter a lot of the hops made its way in there.

After doing research later on this matter I seen that they have strainers for the hops, I guess I should have used one. However, with the hops in my fermenter, will that ruin the beer, or make it taste awful? And should I strain out the hops when I move it to the bottling bucket?

Thanks a lot.

 

[kh54s10]

Bringing the wort back to a boil may have changed the hop profile a bit but you would probably not notice the difference.

There is really no need to strain the wort. I never do. During the fermentation time everything will settle to the bottom. If you transfer carefully to the bottling bucket you will not need any straining then either. It will not make any changes it the flavor.

 

[dkeller12]

If you feel the need to strain when transfering to the bottling bucket, a simple trick is to wrap some cheese cloth, grain bag or hop sack on the end of your siphon. I had an IPA that had lots of hop debris floating around in it and that worked great.

 

[TANSTAAFB]

DON'T PANIC!
Beer is really hard to F up and your beer is fine. The extra boil time wont hurt a thing though it probably would have been fine without it. As a precaution in the future you could sanitize the plastic bottles. As for the hops, having some make it into the fermenter is perfectly normal. Now it's called trub (troob) along with proteins, dead yeast cells, and whatever else falls to the bottom! Even after several years (and even more gadgets and attempted solutions) I still get some hops transferring from the kettle. You did two really smart things (reboiling and racking instead of dumping), now do a couple more...leave it alone for 2 weeks. Don't open the lid, don't take samples, don't rack it to another vessel for 2 weeks. Let the yeastie beasties do their thing!

 

[Hopper5000]

You had grains in your boil kettle?

As for the hops you are fine. They can impart a grassy flavor so it's a good idea to not leave the beer sitting around in primary for 2 months.

I don't think that sraining the wort out is a bad idea at all, I always use a grain strainer that is sanitized.

As long as you sanitize and clean the iced waterbottle there whouldn't be a problem with it infecting your beer.

 

[Starbug]

first off, congrats on your first brew! While I'm no master at this yet (only got about 8-10 brews under my belt so far) I think you'll still be doing fine. I've only just last night ran my brew through a strainer for the first time last night and while you probably get some benefits from getting some of the bittering hops and trub out, I don't think it's adversely affected our beer all that much. We use Irish Moss as a clarifier which can help get all that stuff to drop out with the yeast cake and in addition I'd recommend cold crashing for a few days before bottling, I'd tried that a couple times now and it's really seemed to make a noticable difference in the clarity of my beers.

as far as heating it up to boil again, I think you should be fine, though I couldn't speak though experience how adversely it could have affected your brew I have had my share of minor disasters and flubs (pitched my first beer at 80% and couldnt get the temp down once it started fermenting, made a starter for a dry yeast pack (for the same beer), followed a recipe when i should've looked up more info and quadrupled the amount of hibiscus I probably should've put into a wit, the list goes on) but while I was freaking out over each of these things as I tend to, I kept reading in the forums the same general consensus, In a lot of these scenarios and even if the brew tastes a bit off soon after its bottled, to give it a chance and let the yeast do it's job, it knows what its doing, and a lot of different negative flavors can blend and fade with time. And for the most part it's been some sage advice.

Aside from a loss in chocolate flavor in a chili stout I have (which I must say is still improving with age) bottle aging has greatly improved all my beers. If it comes out less then stellar when you first try it after a week or two, give it a few more, then a few more.


Again, I'm still a bit of a newb to all this, just my humble opinions.

 

[boydster]

Congratulations on your first brew day! You're fine, don't worry about the 2nd boil or the hops debris. Lots of folks transfer everything in the brew kettle to the fermenter.

Follow the advice you get here. Have plenty of patience. You'll have flat beer sitting in that fermenter in a couple weeks ready for you carb, condition, and enjoy.

 

[Clonefan94]

As others have said, I don't think you will have any issues with either situation. I do use a large strainer over my bucket when I pour my wort from the boil pot. It does strain out a lot of the hop gunk, but mainly, I use it to help aerate the wort. I still get some of the smaller hop particles into the wort and haven't noticed any ill effects as of yet.

 

[tfmcmenemy]

Thanks a lot guys.... You all have really eased my mind. I'll let you all know how the brew comes out after I bottle.

 

[Hopper5000]

cool and good luck, RDWHAHB!