I love my hop spider. My most recent beer is 10 gallons of hazy IPA with 16 ounces of hops in the boil. It just about maxed out my hop spider, but flavor, aroma and bitterness are exactly what I was going for. No idea if throwing them in loose would have increased utilization at all, but after...
I've never used that yeast and I don't brew meads, but sounds like you are fermenting too cold. Looks like the recommended temp range for that yeast is 59-68. Looks like fermentation is going, just really slow. Get the temp up to the low-mid 60's and I bet you'll be fine.
Abbey is definitely one of my favorites from them. if you can get your hands on La Folie, its definitely one of the best American made oud bruins i've had. If you live in Maine, I would guess you've had much better IPA's than anything New Belgium will ever make.
I always had this problem with my refractometer when I was taking a reading once the beer had started fermenting. I could be wrong, but I thought this is one of the downsides to using refractometers, the blurry line is a result of the alcohol that is now present in the beer?
So, last brewday I broke my hydrometer. This was my first broken hydrometer, and I broke it just before I took my OG. Luckily I bought 2 when I first started brewing, so no problem, I just busted out the new one and took my reading. All was good until I plugged my numbers into Beersmith. My...