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johnodon · 10-04-2010, 09:32 PM

OK...so Sunday I brewed a 5.5 gallon batch of a Victory HopeDevil clone (AG). Unfortunately, all of my regular fermenters (6.5 gal carboys) are tied up with otehr brews. So, I had to resort to using a bottling bucket as a fermenter. Unfortunately #2, I decided to pitch 2 vials of Easty Coast Ale yeast. I figured I would be OK since I always use blowoff tubes rather than airlocks.

Tonight, this thing is going friggin bonkers!!! So much that the blowoff tube can't keep up. The lid was bulging to the point that I thought it was going to blow. Luckily I caught it in time and just gave the lid a push to relieve teh pressure. I was doing this about every 30 minutes.

Eventually what I decided to do was to pull the blowoff tube out and remove the rubber grommet from teh lid so I could fit a large ID blowoff tube. This seemed like a great idea until...

... the grommet went teh wrong way and disappeared into the krausen!

Do you guys think I am in store for a ruined batch? Everything had been completely sanitized on Sunday when I put this baby to sleep but it has been sitting in teh basement for a day. I can't be certain what bacteria had decided to setup shop on top of the lid during this time.

Is there anything I should do?

TIA,

John

***Yooper*** · 10-04-2010, 09:40 PM

I've done that, too! Went to push in the airlock and plop! in goes the grommet. Assuming that you sanitized the lid before hand, it'll be fine.

I'd be a little concerned about the temperature of that beer right now- if it's going nutso right now it could be getting hot. If you have a stick-on thermometer on the outside, check it to make sure it's under 70 degrees. If it's warmer than that, get it in a water bath pronto.

Pitching two vials of yeast is probably the correct amount of yeast to pitch, but check with mrmalty.com and click on the "yeast pitching calculator" to see the correct amount of yeast that would be optimum for this batch. I doubt that you overpitched by much, if at all.

superjunior · 10-04-2010, 09:53 PM

I've had the grommet go into the bucket as well, I bet it happens to a lot of people. just leave it in there and get a new grommet. I always keep an extra on standbye for this reason

johnodon · 10-04-2010, 10:46 PM

It is 70* on the nose. I'm going to move it to the steps in my bilco. That is usally 5 degress cooler than the rest of the basement.

Right now it seems that the larger blowoff tube is keeping pace well enough. I'll keep checking over the next couple of hours.

Thanks for the replies!

John

johnodon · 10-05-2010, 11:38 AM

Whew! Came down this morning and found that the lid was still securely sealed and bubbling had slowed. I should be out of the woods now as long as I avoided infection.

John

JefeTheVol · 10-05-2010, 02:49 PM

Yep...I too have had a positive grommet sign. No worries.

**jturie** · 10-05-2010, 03:31 PM

Same here...never had an infection issue. The growing alcohol should fight off any minor bugs. I blew a lid off a plastic fermenter last month that hit the ceiling of my crawlspace, releasing dust that had to have landed in the bucket. The beer tastes just fine. IMHO you really have to screw up bad to get an infected batch.

Nice to see another close PA brewer!

Ludovico · 10-05-2010, 03:35 PM

Fluffhead · 10-05-2010, 06:59 PM

Can you share your recipe? I'm trying to clone this brew in the next few days. From what I hear there is a lot of vienna in the grain bill.

johnodon · 10-05-2010, 08:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fluffhead

Can you share your recipe? I'm trying to clone this brew in the next few days. From what I hear there is a lot of vienna in the grain bill.

Sure thing. I'll post it in the recipe section. Look for it under Recipes in my signature in a little bit. FYI...this is actually the AHS Victory HopeDevil clone recipe. I expected a lot of Vienna also due to teh description on the Victory webpage, but the base malt in the AHS version is just plain old 2 row.

John