First batch, maybe infected - with pictures

Hey Homebrewers!

I just started my first brew this monday 7th may 2012, it's now thursday the 10th may - after 34 hours my beer started to ferment. BTW it's a Coopers IPA beer kit. I ended up adding the yeast at midnigt, but the the temperature was about 30 celcius - and i was supposed to pitch it about 25 celcius. 4 days passed, and now im afraid i've got an infection. Theres a substantious amount of brown krausen and large bubbles.
All other cases got the respone "RDWHAHB" - hope it's the same here though. but i want to be sure so i've taken some pictures for you to see - had to open the fermenter though Noticed the brew smelled of STRONG alcohol - i've got gin in the airlock?
1 of the pictures were taken 15 minutes later - lid on while waiting.
Hoping it's not that bad :/
Meanwhile, i'll be drinking craft beer

http://imgur.com/a/G1kel

Looks proper, also I would not call that a substantial amount of krausen.

You pitched yeast a little warm, this is usually not affiliated with infection, you may get some off flavors from the yeast that are not associated with an IPA, think Belgian flavors.

looks fine, but 30C or even the 25C is way too warm for pitching. such high temps leads to excess esters & fusels - which is likely your alcohol smell. keep it 20C and under

dcp27 said:

looks fine, but 30c or even the 25c is way too warm for pitching. Such high temps leads to excess esters & fusels - which is likely your alcohol smell. Keep it 20c and under

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+1

Looks good Bro. Only way you're gonna get an infection is bad sanitation or LEAVING THE LID OFF YOUR BUCKET TO TAKE PICTURES. Not usually a good idea. But seriously that looks great and as stated above you did pitch a bit too high. I usually go by whatever the ambient temp is in my house or where I'm fermenting, I'll pitch close to that. Keep in mind when the yeast starts working the temp will increase in the fermentor. Cheers.

Thanks guys, great to know it's gonna be allright
Sure does smell like a strooong beer.
I had to pitch the yeast because i was afraid to wait any longer. Probably waited 4 hours or something. Gonna make an ice bath next time, and not boiling more water than necessary.

That's not a lot of krausen... This is ...

P.S. Too bad I can't post the video where you can see foam travelling through the tube.

Krausenating the countryside

eviljay said:

Krausenating the countryside

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HAHA - exactly! Trogdor strikes again !

TrogdorTheBrewinator said:

That's not a lot of krausen... This is ...

P.S. Too bad I can't post the video where you can see foam travelling through the tube.

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Haha. Forgot all about Trogdor. Had to think about it a min. What yeast is that? That us what my Irish ales look like.

guinness_time said:

Haha. Forgot all about Trogdor. Had to think about it a min. What yeast is that? That us what my Irish ales look like.

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This is Nottingham dry yeast. I used this yeast 3 times so far and it's been fermenting crazy like that each and every time (the very first time I used it was actually in a bucket with an airlock. I was lucky to have spotted it in time, the lid was about to blow off). The only other yeast I've seen doing something like this so far is Wyest's hefeweizen yeast.

TrogdorTheBrewinator said:

This is Nottingham dry yeast. I used this yeast 3 times so far and it's been fermenting crazy like that each and every time (the very first time I used it was actually in a bucket with an airlock. I was lucky to have spotted it in time, the lid was about to blow off). The only other yeast I've seen doing something like this so far is Wyest's hefeweizen yeast.

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Nice thanks. All my WLP 004 (Irish Ale) do this. Looks like some kind of growth in the bucket. But the beer always tastes good.

Jebien said:

Thanks guys, great to know it's gonna be allright
Sure does smell like a strooong beer.
I had to pitch the yeast because i was afraid to wait any longer. Probably waited 4 hours or something. Gonna make an ice bath next time, and not boiling more water than necessary.

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My brother and I made a wort chiller for $30 we got the copper and tubing from home depot best investment to date

TrogdorTheBrewinator said:

That's not a lot of krausen... This is ...

P.S. Too bad I can't post the video where you can see foam travelling through the tube.

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That looks just like the Christmas Spiced Baleywine that I woke up to Sunday morning. I think I lost almost a quart and a half through the blowoff tube. I knew it would need a lot of yeast and I had a cake left from a Russian Imperial Stout that was ready to go (Wyeast Irish Ale). Maybe next time I'll just do a starter, that way it won't blow up while I'm sleeping. Much calmer now. Also, wouldn't the hop flavor be greatly diminished with a 4+ hour chill time? I like the comment about the $30 wort chiller.