Explosive fermentation in a low gravity beer

I brewed a hefeweizen all grain that came to 1.038 og, using white labs hefeweizen IV and this morning (the 2nd day of fermentation) I went into the basement and saw the lid was halfway open and kraussen was on the floor.
Can anyone offer any reasons as to why such a vigorous fermentation in a low gravity beer?

Yeast party??????


Each fermentation is different. I have had low gravity brews go crazy and blow off, and have had high gravity brews just slowly dhug along, and the opposite also. Only the yeast know.

Probably too warm.

Yep, i'd suspect temperature issues, too.

Should I expect off flavors?

bytor2012 said:

Should I expect off flavors?

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Maybe, maybe not. How warm did it get?

bytor2012, My Noble Trappist has done the same thing with Wyeast this week...except I managed to catch it bubbling out of the airlock and clean it before my lid got blown off.

I'm on my second day of cleaning/replacing my airlock about every 4 hours. It was close to blowing the lid off this morning after sitting for 9 hours overnight.

My room stays at about 64-68, the wort is holding around 68 now, after spiking at 72 just before the foaming through the airlock started. It's my second brew ever, so I'm a little nervous about it doing this for 2 days now...I hope it settles down soon.

I've found that many of the yeasts that can produce clove-like phenols generally are prolific producers of krausen. -Hefeweizens are notoriously explosive fermenters and like endorphine44, I've had a few Belgian strains that have behaved the same way. (Especially when the yeast is healthy and ready to get eating those sugars.)

Just leave more head space for those beers (get a 1 gallon demijohn and put only 4 1/2 gallons in the carboy and 1/2 gallon in the demijohn); you could use ferm control products but I'm not a fan of chemicals in my beer.


The hefe strains produce more clove at higher temps and can produce the nasty band-aid phenols if you have chlorine in your water that you haven't gotten rid of.


Adam