Jimbo (san) said:
My impression was of a very strong plant smell from the hops almost
like Pot.
They're actually related plants: it's the resins in the hop buds that
contain the bittering agent.
Quoted message said:I was a little concerned that they stated an hour boil time in the
instructions and Pappazian reccomends half that time... I wonder if
this is where I could have over sparged...
You did the correct thing with the crystal malt in the muslin bag.
Steeping that at too high a temperature might get you some tannins, but
it's really not an issue unless you're doing all-grain. Forget I
mentioned it ;-).
The hour boil time sounds right to me. You boil for two reasons: first,
the mechanical action of the boil causes proteins to clump and fall out
of solution. This is called the "hot break", and is the gunky foam you
see on the surface of the wort. Second, the boil extracts the bitter
resins ("humulones", or "alpha acids"😉 from the hops. The longer you
boil the hops, the more bittering agents you extract, but you tend to
boil off the compounds that give flavor and aroma. This is why you do
two (or three) hop additions: bittering hops boil for an hour,
flavoring hops boil for a half hour or so, and aroma hops go in right
at the end of the boil. By varying this basic formula, you can create
different hop profiles in the beer.
Sounds like you did a good job. So relax, don't worry, have a home
brew...
CC