sediment immediately after putting wort in carboy

[Cali4niaBrewin]

Hello, I just started my first batch of beer. Its an amber ale extract kit from b3. Ingriedients as follows: 8lbs lme, grains, 4oz magnum hops, 2oz willamete hops. I believe i followed the instructions to a t. My question is whether or not it is normal to have a little more than 2 inches of sediment at the bottom of my carboy about a half hour after putting the wort in the carboy. Hope i gave enough info. thanks

[bruin_ale]

If you used 6 oz of pellet hops with or without a straining bag, you'll get quite a bit of sediment in a short period of time. That seems like quite a lot of hops, how long did you boil for?

[Cali4niaBrewin]

i meant to say 1 oz magnum hops... so 3oz total hops, 60 min boil with magnum, last five mins with 1 oz of wilamette, and last min with 1 more oz wilamette. .. Used white labs california ale yeast and had 1lb of grain "crystal 60L"

[danno]

the answer is "yes". you have trub, which is a normal part of brewing. trub can cause off flavors if you leave your beer on it for extended times, so plan on transferring to a secondary fermentation in a week or so...

[brewmonkey]

Originally posted by Cali4niaBrewin
i meant to say 1 oz magnum hops... so 3oz total hops, 60 min boil with magnum, last five mins with 1 oz of wilamette, and last min with 1 more oz wilamette. .. Used white labs california ale yeast and had 1lb of grain "crystal 60L"

Glad to see that is 1oz of Magnum and not 4 like the original post. I was like HOLY FREAKING DOG S&#T! 4oz's of Magnum (Super Alpha Hop folks) would make 5 USG of beer rather bitter. LOL! Unless you like a 300 IBU beer...:eek:

[bruin_ale]

Haha, yeah - that's what I was thinking.. I just made a DIPA and used 2 oz. of Magnum (90 min boil) and it's going to be about 100 IBU. The sweetness of the wort couldn't even come close to masking the bitterness that was extracted. It's going to be oh sooo good.

[HogieWan]

What did you use to chill the boiled wort? If you got a good cold break, you will get a good bit of sediment from that.

[Cali4niaBrewin]

I used a chiller to cool my wort, it seemed to cool off fairly quickly, although i dont have anything to compare it to. Cooled to around 75 in about 10-15 mins, wasnt timing it, just a guess.
Another question...When i transfer to secondary fermenter i assume i am going to have a good amount less than five gallons, so should fill the rest of the five gallon carboy up with water? I hear that you want to have as little head room as possible. What kind of water should i use, boiled? Bottled water? Also how do i keep from aerating the beer when adding the water?

[bruin_ale]

Don't add water. You'd need to add cooled water, and the cooled water would likely contain oxygen even if you boil it first. Next time shoot for a 5.5 gallon batch to end up in your primary, that way you'll get about 5 gallons into secondary. Don't worry that much about your headspace, I find that when I transfer to secondary some CO2 comes out of solution and it gases out for a few minutes to a few days. This will get the oxygen out of the carboy and protect the beer.

The only tip I have for reducing oxidation when racking is just to be careful to have the hose on the bottom of the container you are racking to so it doesn't splash at all.
Of course, if you have CO2, you can purge the carboy with that and have no worries at all, or you can use CO2 to rack from carboy to carboy or from keg to keg.