remove passphrase from the key?

[kloomis]

Hello:

I have some directions on how to build a self-signed certificate which consists of 5 steps.
1) create a key and a request
2) Remove the passphrase from the key (optional)
3) sign the certificate
4) install the cert and the key
5) set the SSLConf to point to the cert and the key.

My question is what are the effects of removing the passphrase from key?  Is the data still encrypted?  Also, does anything in the process need the privkey.pem file that is created once the cert and key are created?

Thanks,

Ken