Abundance of sediment! Is this normal?

Relax, have a homebrew. Its not bad. Let it do its thing.

 

It's called "trub". 3 inches is a normal amount depending on batch size and how much malt was used in the boil. Secondary fermentation is a good way to keep trub from primary fermentation out of the finished product.

Happy Trails!

 

Youve got some healthy yeast there. One can always be SURE to lose some amount of beer due to boil off volume, blow offs, yeast sediment etc. Thats why you plug stuff like that into your brew calculator, they are great for calculating things like that, albeit maybe not yeast sediment amount. Blow offs are good IMO, means that you are getting good fermentation. You did well to resaniitze and stuff, although a blow off tube woulda probly saved you some work. I bet you dont lose as much as you think. Even if you do, big deal, its your first batch, and it sounds like its certainly gonna be beer. While 8 lbs of malt isnt a ton (im guessing its all grain 5 gal batch) It can really depend on alot of things, temp, yeast strain etc. Either way, like I said, dont worry about it. Id say you are right to worry a lil, cuz thats your baby in there, but its just doing what its sposed to do. If theres one thing Ive learned from home brewing, its patience. Another thing is to not worry so much. And if I ever did? Well, Id just read How To Brew again or start watching youtube videos. They got one on everything! How To Brew and Youtube and Google are your friend. BA too, of course

 

Here is what's going on with your yeast:



Homebrewers call it krausen and yours exceeds the headspace so it goes out the airlock, very important to keep this open and sanitized. As suggested, many youtube videos showing this in action. Is your carboy a 6.5 or 5 gallon size?

The trub in your carboy is protein, fats, hob debris, and dead yeast. You can minimize to a degree by leaving more of this in the brew kettle . . . you will learn how as you brew more (took me a year+). And you are correct that you really want to leave this behind when you rack. You do this by minimizing movement of the carboy before racking. I suggest the night before you place the carboy in the position you will rack from, to include tilting it slightly. Moving disturbs the trub but overnight it will settle (another year+ for me to learn this). And don't try and get the last drop. My rule of thumb is to fill the fermenter to 5.2 gallons to net 5 gallons (a little more if dry hopping) and yes that took a while to learn . . . see how much ahead of the game you already are.

Oh yeah, welcome to your first batch of beer . . . what's the style?

 

Technically, you don't lose beer (wort) to boiloff, you lose water. With good planning (and/or a good program), and a dialed-in system, you can end up with pretty much exactly as much wort in the fermenter as you want. I'm pissed if I'm off by be even .10 gallons (because chances are the gravity will have been thrown off too.). Once your wort is in the fermenter, you don't necessarily have to lose anything to blowoff. Depends on several factors, but probably 95% of my batches don't have any blowoff. I use a 6.5 gallon carboy (not 6 gallon) for 5 gallon batches. Temp control is also key.