Snowflakes in my fermenter. Problem?

[Dukester]

First off, I went through the FAQ and there is so much there in the "Did I ruin my beer" part I couldn't get through it all. I mean there are at least 20 "Did I ruin my beer" threads and another 10+ "Should I dump it" threads. Too hard to sort through.

I just finished brewing my first batch of beer after a long (15 year) hiatus. It's true what they say about knowledge, if you don't use it, you lose it.

So after filling my carboy with two gallons of cold water, pouring the wort through the strainer into the carboy, and adding enough water to bring it up to 5 1/2 gallons (and prior to adding yeast) I have snowflake like particulate matter in the bottom half of the carboy. It is settling out, but my question, is is this normal? Is this the Irish Moss going to work on the proteins in the beer?

Hope I haven't ruined my first batch in a long time before I even gotten started.

Thanks,

Dukester

 

[DrinksWellWithOthers]

I'm not really sure what you mean by snowflakes, but I'm thinking its just break material that is going to settle out. Got any pictures?

 

[rabidgerbil]

sounds like cold break to me

 

[Dukester]

Yep, looks like this:

 

[BuffaloSabresBrewer]

yer good............

 

[Nurmey]

You must have done things right since you got such a nice cold break.

 

[Orfy]

How do you chill?

 

[Dukester]

Chilled with nothing but good cold Northwest tap water. Added wort to two gallons cold tap water, then additional tap water up to 5.5 gal. Temp was just a hair over 78° after a stir and hydrometer reading.

Now that I know what I'm looking at, I see there are various opinions as to whether or not I should remove the cold break sediment. Should I think about racking to a secondary after it all settles out?

Cheers,

Dukester

 

[JoMarky]

Yep, looks like this:

That's a beaut. Wait til it starts swirling around the carboy when fermentation kicks in, you may want to set an alarm.

 

[Revvy]

The reason there are all those "did I ruin my beer" threads lumped in one place, is NOT so that you have to wade through all of them, but to show you that EVERY NEW BREWER thinks they ruined their beer, when in reality their beer is fine...like yours. And to show you that you should first relax, and secondly never dump your beer...

So take the advice given in all of those threads and RELAX!

All you are seeing is normal fermentation; you are seeing yeast/hops/trub/cold breaks all being kicked around

 

[rabidgerbil]

Chilled with nothing but good cold Northwest tap water. Added wort to two gallons cold tap water, then additional tap water up to 5.5 gal. Temp was just a hair over 78° after a stir and hydrometer reading.

Where you at in the NW? I love my water here in Seattle. From fall through spring, when running my cf chiller, it is the WATER that I have to throttle back, not the flow of the wort, otherwise I end up with 42 degree wort in my bucket, and it takes forever for fermentation to kick off. Summer I can run it a little faster, but even then I have to be careful. We are very lucky, compared to our brothers and sisters in the warmer parts of the country, where they have to take more inventive measures to get their wort down to pitching temp.

 

[Dukester]

Where you at in the NW?

Well I'm just south of you in Stumptown.

And I agree, it's nice not having to use a chiller. I'm glad I don't live in Palm Springs any more!

Cheers,

Dukester

 

[rabidgerbil]

Cool... nice city... especially love the rose garden...
and all the good beer *grin*

Welcome to the insanity

 

[ChshreCat]

That's like a lava lamp for beer lovers.