First brew - BB Milk Stout - questions questions questions!

Okay, maybe only a few questions. First off, hey to any and all here! Stoked on taking up this hobby and brewing ridiculous amounts of delicious beer!

Got set up over the holidays, by my awesome wife, with the "fancy" brewers best kit and brewed up a batch of Brewers Best Milk Stout from their extract kit. Being my first brew, i definitely didn't have all parts dialed in, but spent a lot of time making sure i got the steps right. I still ran across some issues.

1. Brewed 3 gal concentrated in a 20 qt kettle. Did not add any flocculation aids (whirlfloc, irish moss, etc.) After cooling to ~95° in the sink, I racked to carboy as i did not plan to secondary (following ideas presented by Jamil Zainasheff in an early BN Session podcast.) Two possible problems manifested here: i was a bit overzealous as i racked, and may have pulled too much trub into the carboy.
AND
2. Added slightly too much water when topping up to 5gal. OG was @ 1.05.

Later, after fermentation was well under way and airlock was bubbling every ~1 sec, i noticed quite a bit of material (trub?) being stirred about by the yeast action.

Will this increased material overly affect my final beer?

Can i do any fining between fermentation and bottling?
(More importantly, would it matter?)

Could i put some sort of filter on my racking cane when i go to the bottling bucket?

Any help is appreciated!
Oh... here are some shots of my brew in fermentation.

Sorry for the unnecessary attachments. Posting from my phone.

You made beer!!!! Rdwhahb. The stirring action is very normal....it means your yeast is hard at work making alcohol!! As for after its done and your racking it.....many people do use some stuff to filter their beer. If your halfway proficient with your siphon just leave enough beer in the carboy with out disturbing the trub at the bottom

Good luck with your Milk Stout. Mine is fermenting as well. It was my 2nd kit and 2nd beer I brewed. Mine looked just like yours, very dark. I have it in a plastic primary. I was planning to put it in the glass carboy for secondary until I read about leaving it in primary on the forums.

I plan to use a glass carboy from now on and keep brews in the primary. Also, I will strain my wort while putting it in, to reduce some of the trub.

Thanks! The "carefully carefully" method is going to be my default when racking from this point on. My next brew will likely be less opaque than this stout, (maybe an ipa?) so i will probably add some whirlfloc to the process to help with settling while cooling. Should i crash cool the stout before bottling to help settle trub?

bimmerbill said:

Good luck with your Milk Stout. Mine is fermenting as well. It was my 2nd kit and 2nd beer I brewed. Mine looked just like yours, very dark. I have it in a plastic primary. I was planning to put it in the glass carboy for secondary until I read about leaving it in primary on the forums.

I plan to use a glass carboy from now on and keep brews in the primary. Also, I will strain my wort while putting it in, to reduce some of the trub.

Click to expand...

Yessir, i think straining also sounds like an awesome way to add some oxygen during the initial transfer!

Looking forward to comparing notes with you when the stouts are done conditioning!

I built my temp controller and am warming up my milk stout. It was sitting at 64F or so. Hope to continue fermenting for another week or so (3 total) at 70F.

Nice. I don't have the resources to make temp controller but im also sitting in the 64 range. I might try to move the fermenter to a warmer part of the house. Ghetto style!