Trub

I am very excited to have my very first batch of beer fermenting in a carboy with a blow off tube to get rid of that nasty excess krausen. It seems like there is a lot of nasty looking stuff at the bottom of the carboy (about 2 inches) and I was wondering if this is just trub or if it might be contamination. Also I am supposed to be brewing an IPA but the color of the beer is very dark...does the color lighten with age and fermentation? Thanks, I can't wait for the 2 weeks to pass so I can start bottling!

Did you whirlpool before the wort went to primary? Did you stain the wort as it went to primary? It prally is trub and even a carboy full of budlight would be kinda dark relativily speaking.

yeah i strained the wort, but what is whirlpooling?

It is just trub & yeast sediment, nothing to fear. A 2" layer is excessive, you should only have about 1/2"-1" of crap on the bottom when primary is finished. Trub takes up valuable real estate in your primary, you need to be careful to avoid too much trub carryover when you empty your brewpot. Beer in the carboy always looks darker than it really is, just an optical delusion.

Don't worry.It is normal. When you transfer to a bottling bucket just be careful about not getting the stuff on the bottom. The color of the brew in the carboy is always darker than when it is bottled.

Whirlpooling - Depends how you get your wort from kettle to fermenter but assuming your siphoning you would take your sanitized spoon and spin the wort real good and then let it rest for 15 minutes or so. All the hop etc will form a cone in the center of the pot. Then you siphon from the side to avoid bringing too much sediment into the fermenter. You strained and that's fine but I wouldn't try and get every last drop from the kettle. When it gets real thick, it's probably time to stop. The whirlpool method works very nice however and you don't have to strain then either. I'd recommend an auto-siphon if you don't already have one.

Since it's an IPA and I suspect you used hop pellets that is contributing to your 2" of trub. Nothing to worry about; your mileage will vary based on a lot of variables on thickness of trub. You'll leave that behind when you rack to a secondary (which we'd all recommend if you weren't).

thanks a lot guys, very helpful feedback...now i just have to be patient for a few weeks!