crum

Recipes 

This morning while eating breakfast I hear this big pop come from the room where I ferment my beer. Now I am worried my dog has knock over my carboy. So I run to the next run to see my airlock has blown off and the wall is covered in wort foam. Looking at the wort still in the carboy, it is so active it looks like somebody is sitting there stirring it and foam is coming out the top. This is from a batch of beer made this last sunday and put it in my primary fermentor (6.5 gal carboy).
So I ended up putting a new cork and a blow off tube on and went to work. Hopefully I do not get home and have another mess.

Hope the beer is still OK.

Janx

Recipes 

Beer will be cool almost certainly. With the fermentation going that strong, nothing can compete.

Wow, clogged airlocks and overflowing fermentors is kinda the problem of the week around here. Sorry about your mess. I'd find a bigger primary if you want to avoid it.

Janx

__________________
Oh don't give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit
No, don't you give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit
For my head will fly, my tongue will lie, my eyes will fry and I may die
Won't you pour me one more of that sinful Old Janx Spirit

JEM Australia

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In terms of exposing the beer to oxygen and bacteria, it should be OK if it was fermenting that hard. The CO2 should have been pouring out of the carboy keeping everything at bay.

However I'm not sure why it was fermenting that hard, unless the temperature is too high and the yeast is having an orgy.

Janx

Recipes 

My beers almost always ferment really hard if I chill them onto a yeast slurry from a previous batch The pale ale we made a couple of days ago was fermenting within hours and by evening the airlock was going 3-5 times per second.

It definitely would blow off if I didn't have a big fermentor. It gets a big pile of foam on top.

__________________
Oh don't give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit
No, don't you give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit
For my head will fly, my tongue will lie, my eyes will fry and I may die
Won't you pour me one more of that sinful Old Janx Spirit

crum

Recipes 

Yeah I figured the beer would be ok. This is my third batch and first 2 did not do this. The other 2 batches only filled the carboy with about 4 – 5 inches of foam with room to spare. This is the first batch I tried to brew from scratch not using a kit.
This batch was made with 2 oz of cascade, some irish moss, 7 lbs of light malt and fresh yeast. I am wondering if the fresh yeast has something to do with the activity.

The funny part was I had to call to work and say I would be late. When they asked why everybody got a good laugh out of me saying I beer was over flowing.

rightwingnut

Recipes 

Janx, so when you put your wort onto a "used" yeast bed, why doesn't that cause the "off flavors" that you rack to secondary to avoid?

Janx

Recipes 

Because it's a fresh, newly made batch of wort. So, it's basically just like an enormous yeast pitch.

The same thinking applies, though, that you want to rack it off the yeast bed within about a week for the cleanest flavor.

I've never noticed the off-flavors typical of single-stage fermentation from using this method.

__________________
Oh don't give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit
No, don't you give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit
For my head will fly, my tongue will lie, my eyes will fry and I may die
Won't you pour me one more of that sinful Old Janx Spirit

Witbier

Recipes 

Ditto that. I've done this a few times myself and never noticed any off flavors. I have read though that you don't want to do this more than 4 or 5 times because the yeast mutates and its characteristics change.

Janx

Recipes 

Yeah, not to mention you're probably picking up some degree of unwanted bacteria and whatnot over the course of racking. I usually go 3 times or at most 4 if I'm confident things are clean.

Only have to clean the primary once a month!

__________________
Oh don't give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit
No, don't you give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit
For my head will fly, my tongue will lie, my eyes will fry and I may die
Won't you pour me one more of that sinful Old Janx Spirit

uglygoat

Recipes 

ok so you just pour another batch of wort onto the sediment layer from the primary, then pitch in another helping of yeast? do you do this on the same day as the rack and boil or can you let that yeast slurry sit for a spell with the air lock in place?

i am interested in recycling my yeast and this sounds brilliant, not to mention i like the aspect of transporting a part of my previous beers from batch to batch... it's like having kids, different, yet the similar and they look like you

__________________
A barrel of malt, a bushel of hops, you stir it around with a stick
The kind of lubrication to make your engine tick

never argue with an idiot, they'll just drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.