tea ball mistake

[ColoradoHomebrew]

After my first batch I read somewhere that I should boil the hops in a bag. I saw a hop ball on a website, then saw a tea ball in wallmart and grabed two. I used these for my next three batches (Weizen, brown ale, patersbier). I got to thinking that the hops swells in these and this seems to be a bad idea as the center of the hops may not be getting into the wart.

These batches are in different stages of fermentation/conditioning. Any idea how bad they may taste?

For my next batch I was thinking of just throwing the hops in and straining when I pour the wart. Is this the most common method?

 

[Smidey]

Even though I'm spectacularly new here and might be doing the wrong thing, this is what I plan on doing:
Here is the part where he talks about paint strainer bags

Here's where he talks about how he made it

To me, it looks like a really elegant (and most importantly cheap) solution to the problem

 

[edmanster]

I just throw everything into the fermenter.. I don't think it's necessary to strain because everything falls out to the bottom anyways.. I just put 5.5 gallons in expecting a big trub on the bottom.. I only use the tea balls for dry hopping my kegs...

 

[ColoradoHomebrew]

Do you think my past batches are going to be excessively un-hopped or just slightly? I'd hate to have bad beer.

 

[edmanster]

I mainly taste mine at kegging time but if your unsure you can taste them after about a week to get an idea... If they're too sweet you have options to blend them with a purposely bittered batch at bottling or kegging time or get some isomerized hop extract that you can add to the finished beer before you bottle or keg...

 

[RugerRedhawk]

I just dump it in so far so good.