I had a mini disaster last night with my cranberry wheat beer.....
The airlock activity had slowed to less than 1 bubble per min and I decided to rack the beer on top of the 3lbs of cranberry I had. The cranberry was previously added to the blended and chopped, not pureed, and then frozen to extract the juices. Here is what it looked like after racking:
The beer looked nice and fermentation kicked up again after adding the fruit. The only problem was that since I didnt puree the fruit, just gave it a coarse chop, it didn't blend with the beer and just floated on top. When I first racked, I didnt think it would be an issue b/c I did leave some head space and had a blow off tube set up.
Well, I checked the beer a few hours later and it wasn't bubbling and when I looked, the cranberry chunks where right at the bottom of the airlock. When I went to get closer and check to see if the airlock was clogged, I put my hand on the next of the carboy and BOOM! Airlock shot a foot in the air and cranberry went everywhere, including all over my clothes and hair.
The chunks clogged the opening and the Co2 built up. Cranberry went everywhere and was like a fountain pouring out of the neck! My first thought was to clean it up, but then I remembered, the first step is to take a pic to share with HBT, THEN clean it up....
Anyway, thankfully the mess wasnt too bad, only spent an hour cleaning up and didnt loose any beer, just some cranberry. By my utility room/fermentation room is about 8x4 with my furnace, hot water tank, washer, and dryer in there. There was cranberry all over the walls behind the furnace and hot water tank and all over them as well.....
Oh well, lesson learned, puree fruit, not just chop. And possible add to primary when fermentation slows downs, just to take advantage of the head space.....
Exploding carboy....with pics!
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