Help! My First Brew Looks Aweful!

3 lbs Breiss Sparkling LME
4 lbs Breiss Light DME
1 oz Challenger - 60 min
1 oz Cascade - 10 min

OG 1.055

I have my first brew in the fermenter. From 18 hours to 36 hours I had vigorous activity and a good krausen formed. Now I'm at almost 3 Days and there is no activity. The airlock bubbles maybe once a minute. It's still at 68 degrees (ale yeast). Worst of all, it's this nasty milky color.

What do I do? Is it ruined?

I extremely new to this hobby but the thing that I have learned by reading and reading and reading posts on HBT is to be patient. Things may look bad but they get better. From what I read as the yeast eat the sugars it will look cloudy but with time they will settle to the bottom of the carboy. Hope it all works out. Cheers

Walk away from the carboy!! The yeast have not flocculated yet that takes time. Come back and check it in a few weeks.

Looks like a reasonable fermentation to me. Notice an awful smell coming from the carboy? If not, you are totally fine.

Waiting leads to patience. Patience leads to calmness. Calmness leads to good beer. Never think its bad beer, time will fix most beer problems.

Looks pretty normal right now. Give it 3 weeks.

I agree. Looks good to me. Leave it alone for about 3-4 weeks. Then take a gravity reading then 3 days later take another one. If they are the same you and it is near the predicted final gravity you are OK to bottle.

It is actually quite hard to ruin a beer.

+1 to everybody. The #1 ingredient in beer is PATIENCE! It is REALLY hard to get an infection in a near sterile alcohol environment, so there is about a 95% chance this beer and every beer you ever make is going to be just fine.

Give it 3 weeks in primary, bottle/keg, then give it 3-5 weeks to carb and condition. Unless there's a jungle growing on the surface of your beer and it tastes sour, never judge it until after it's done. Fermentation is not always a pleasent thing visually or odorifically (<-- I just made that word up...copyright ME), but it all comes out in the end!

Good luck!

It's milky looking because the yeast is in suspension, and the yeast is white. Once the fermentation is done, the yeast will flocculate (clump) and fall to the bottom of the fermenter, and it'll look darker and more like beer!

it's trashed. i run a ruined beer disposal unit here in the Twin Cities, sent it to me for proper handling:
NeB
PO box 77
Mpls, MN 55555






no, really, RDW and step away from the carboy, come back in 2-3 weeks and bottle that beer you made.

lol @ NeB.

Relax, OP. This is perfectly normal fermentation!

Go google some pics (or search this forum) for fermenting beer - you will see a huge variety of appearance, many of which seem downright nasty. You're goingto come away with beer, and you will be happy.

Thanks all, I get the message: just chill out. I was just concerned that it seemed like activity had stopped and it still looked this way. Thanks for the perspective!

Ben