sediment

[donut]

hi im a first time brewer and i just now brewed my first batch. i used the laagerland brew kit with an extra 3.3 lbs of malt extract and its only been like 3 hours and i already have about 3/4 of an inch of light brown sediment on the bottom and my brew is quite dark. so my question is "is the sediment normal?" i havent even pitched my yeast yet ,but i am about to right now. any help for this newbie would be much apprecieated(sp?)

[danno]

Yes, that's normal, just trub settling out from your boil.

Any special reason you're waiting ot pitch your yeast? (cooling issues?) The time prior to fermentation is when your wort is most susceptible to infection. That's why you hear lots about pitching a large starter, oxygenating, etc... you want to get the yeast working and producing alcohol as soon as possible, once it's cool enough.....

As an aside, I brewerd a Conifornia Common this weekend, through my homemade counterflow chiller, my wort was coming out into my carboy at 60º...

[paul84043]

I second Danno,
Get your wort to temp ASAP and get your yeast pitched. I usually have mine cooled off within 10 minutes, in the fermentor, temp stable, yeast pitched, and wort oxygenated within 25 minutes from turning off the burner.

The sediment is the "Hot break" and the "Cold break" (hopefully).
There are proteins that precipitate into solids when the wort is above a certain temp, (Hot Break) then if you cool it rapidly enough, the fast transition from hot to cool causes more protiens to solidify and fall out of suspension. (Cold Break) THe faster the better.
Supposedly these protiens will affect the overall quality and taste of the beer if they are allowed to remain.

I usually pour my wort through both a standard collander, and the fine screen that's part of the funnel. It can be a bit tricky to coax it all through the fine screen, but you will strain out a large percentage of these solids right off the bat. Plus you aerate it more when you strain it.

[donut]

cool thanks yeah i had some cooling issues i didnt use cold water i used room temp water without thinking and i then relized my mistake some i put it in a ice chilled tube with a towel and fan blowing (the carboy was covered of course) it was preety hot for a while but i pitched the yeast directly after i started this thread
once again thanks for the replies

[paul84043]

The best thing to do is chill it to a good starting temp in the first place, and then add room temp water. I usually boil mine the day before, or early in the process so it's cool by the time I need to add it.
I cool the wort to 80 degrees or just a tad lower, supposedly you don't want to pitch your yeast into water warmer that 80F. Then by the time you've poured it into the fermentor and topped up, the temp is near perfect. It's probably pure luck, but it's worked for me 4 times already.

You can also leave a bit of room to add more water and see what your temp stabilizes out at. That gives you room to add more hot, or cold water, I keep some bottled in the refrigerator just for that reason...
Someone else here suggested filling a sanitized "tube" of some sort with ice water to stir the wort and cool it, which I thought was a great idea.
I figure it's worth it to have a contingency plan, anything that helps you get your yeast pitched and the fermentor sealed up ASAP is a good thing!
Just remember to wait until you're all done screwing around to take your Original Gravity reading, but BEFORE you pitch your yeast....(so many things to remember..)