Just finished a brew, is it supposed to look like this?

Its an IPA, i followed all directions and it turned out really really cloudy and foamy. the only thing i did differently was add some spring water to help cool it. any comments?

Looks like a IPA to me, everything will drop out during fermentation, you will lose some beer. If that bothers you, use a hop bag/spider or pour the wort through a home depot/lowes paint strainer bag from the brew pot to the carboy.

My first batch looked pretty similar and it turned out fine, I wouldn't worry about it too much.

rdkirk86 said:

Its an IPA, i followed all directions and it turned out really really cloudy and foamy. the only thing i did differently was add some spring water to help cool it. any comments?

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Congratulations! You've made beer! Now put it in a nice mid 60's location and leave it be for 2 weeks! Monitor the airlock for clogging and be prepared to hook up a blow off tube, or better yet, just hook one up now and rest easy for the next week of active fermentation

Now the spring water you added was boiled before you added it correct ?

no, does spring water need to be?

In the 14 batches I have done, 9 were topped off with spring water straight from the gallon jug, no infections. Don't worry about it.

update. any comments now?

Looks really good to me, 2-3 weeks and you are set. The hop/trub layer should decrease a bit, depending on your yeast, it will pack down pretty well (never had good luck with US-05, but Nottingham packs like concrete)

You've got a ton of hop material down at the bottom. Looks like a well hopped ipa. Keep letting it sit and check your gravity to make sure it's stable before you rack to secondary or bottle. Just siphon off the top of all that tribute.

allenH said:

Looks really good to me, 2-3 weeks and you are set. The hop/trub layer should decrease a bit, depending on your yeast, it will pack down pretty well (never had good luck with US-05, but Nottingham packs like concrete)

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Really? I usually get a nice tight yeast cake with US-05. I usually cold crash, though.

ktblunden said:

Really? I usually get a nice tight yeast cake with US-05. I usually cold crash, though.

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I used US-05 for my first 10 batches, I will admit that I never cold crashes any of them. Pulling the out of the ferm chamber, they all seemed "loose". Since I started using Nottingham, the first 3 were very tight, the last two I cold crashed and almost had to break out the scraper to get the trub out of the fermenter. YMMV.

I did try to get some US-05 yesterday, but the LHBS was out, so I had to get more Notty.

what exactly is cold crashing?

rdkirk86 said:

what exactly is cold crashing?

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cold crashing is where you put your fermenter in a really cold environment (say a fridge) for a day or so in order to get the yeast to fall out of suspension, helps clear it up if you like a crystal clear beer.

Cold crashing is bringing your fermented wort down to near freezing temps, causing a lot of the yeast/ hop material to drop to the bottom, resulting in clearer beer. I add gelatin and cold crash 4 to 5 days after I dry hop (IPA/APA). The result is a super clear beer.

This.

+1 on "Check twice for motorcycles", and clear beer.

In the first picture, there is a lot of break material. That's a good thing- that means that you chilled the wort quickly and that "cold break" formed and dropped out. That will help with clarity in the final beer.

In the second photo, the break material (along with some hops debris) settled to the bottom.

The trub will compact a lot once fermentation is finished, even though it sure seems like a lot right now.