Is this hot break?

[dnelson1025]

Is this grey goo the hot break? It's like a cake on top of the boil. I've done a few batches and haven't seen anything look quite so gross before.....

 

[unionrdr]

That's what's left of it. It's a foam that rises quickly right before it boils.

 

[hnycrk]

Looks normal to me.

 

[Yooper]

It's not quite hot break yet. It's foaming, and it should totally break up once the hot break happens. It should foam up quite a bit, and look like it's going to boil over, and suddenly that will "break" and disappear. After that, the foam will be gone, with some crud around the top of the wort in the boil kettle (don't stir that back in!) and the wort will look a bit like egg drop soup with the proteins in tiny globs in the wort. Those "glops" are the hot break material.

 

[dnelson1025]

Gotcha, thanks!

 

[Cyclman]

Hot break typically looks like egg drop soup. It is rather disconcerting, but totally normal.