Grain is just as easy as a kit.  And far more fulfilling.

I also don't have an immersion chiller, but it doesn't seem that's a necessity

It ain't.

You can now go to all grain for no cost (well, you do need to buy a spigot.  I bought a plastic one from my LHBS).  As I said, any bakery will give you 5 gallon food grade buckets for free.  They just throw them out anyway.

You need two buckets.  Install the spigot in one, and drill a bunch of holes in the bottom of the other.  There is your sparge set up.  Mash in a pot.

And immersion chiller.  Heh.

So I didn't think I'd have any dumb newbie questions, but I think I do.

Last Monday night, I started my first batch, a robust porter (yes, Trent... a kit.  Sue me.)

Everything went well enough that night.  The kit came with pellet hops, and I did not strain them out when I transferred to the fermenter.  This may have been dumb, I don't know.

Wort cooled overnight to roughly 70 F, and I pitched my dry yeast packet Tuesday AM.  I noted the gravity at 1.044 (slightly below the recipe's range of 1.048-1.055 I think, but not drastically so). 

• By late Tuesday night, I had bubbles in the airlock.  Roughly 1/8-10 seconds. 
• By Wednesday PM, the thing was rocking with a bubble per second or so. 
• Thursday PM, I didn't see any bubbles at all, but I could still see pressure in the airlock.
• Friday PM: no apparent pressure noted visually in the airlock, and no bubbles.
• Saturday AM: pulled off the lid to get a gravity reading (1.010, slightly below the 1.012-1.016 range suggested but again, not by much).   The smell of the liquid had changed from that of hoppy sweetness to that of beer.  Between the smell and the gravity change, I'm satisfied (as much as a beginner can be) that fermentation took place, though I admit I'm surprised by the quick pace.  I'd expected it to take longer, by maybe 2-5 days.

My questions:

• How worrisome is the fact that I didn't strain the hops out of the wort before fermenting?  My completely uneducated guess is that at best I'll have a hoppier version of the beer I'm brewing (not necessarily my taste, but whatever).  At worst I've done something dumb and wasted a few bucks and hours on some undrinkable concoction.
• The gravity seems to indicate that fermentation is mostly complete.  Should I rack to a secondary fermenter?  And in this case, that would be mostly for reasons of clarity, no?
• What's the best (or easiest, maybe) way to rack to secondary (or a bottling bucket, if no secondary is needed) without transferring all the hops and gunk?  Slip a nylon/muslin bag or two over the racking cane? 

Thanks for your help, folks.

I don't bother with bagging my hop pellets. If some of them end up in the fermenter it's no big deal. They'll settle to the bottom with the yeast eventually. You won't need anything special when racking out of the bucket. Just keep an eye on the racking cane when the bucket starts to get empty to avoid sucking up all the trub and yeast.

1.010 sounds like a good final gravity but I would give it another week to be sure. I made the mistake of bottling a beer that wasn't quite done and one of the bottles blew up on me. Literally. I also don't do many secondary transfers these days. Mostly because I'm lazy and don't like cleaning a second fermenter.

Thanks, all.  I figured this was just my first "RDWHAHB" moment of many to come, but wanted to be sure.

Saturday will be a week since I last checked.  I'll check it again and not be afraid to let it sit a while longer.  The only reason I think I'd rack to my carboy is that I'd prefer to have the initial fermentation taking place in the bucket with extra headspace to avoid having to use a blowoff tube, and if I get itchy to brew another batch this weekend... I'll need the bucket.

Pellet hops... seriously?  Or are you just giving me a hard time?  (Like I don't already know the answer to this question)

Camera, I would suspect that your blown bottle had more to do with too much priming sugar or a weak bottle than due to a hair excess final gravity.

Or perhaps the priming solution was not mixed evenly with the wort?

 

Or perhaps the priming solution was not mixed evenly with the wort?

Yeah I guess I left out some of the facts. Even though I had read "the bible" I ignored the temps in my basement and fermented it in the mid 50s. Then I mixed in the priming sugar per the instructions which was probably too much. After a couple weeks the beers were carbed normal. But after a month they were all over carbed. These days when I do bottle condition I use the beersmith software to calculate how much sugar to add by weight.