Re-Using yeast slurry - explosive results!

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bmckee56

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Well I went ahead and re-used the slurry from an American Pale Ale to get a Pale Ale going and it started off just fine. My problem is that I use an Ale pail and an "S" shaped airlock. Not a good choice for a highly active fermentation which I just happen to have had.

I was sleeping and around 4:00am heard a loud noise in the basement, but I just happened to manage to fall immediately back to sleep (darned homebrew :drunk:). The next morning, I was in the basement and opened up the door to the room the fermenter was in and discovered the lid had blown completely off. It did not just pop open, the sucker blew completely off. I have a hard time getting the lid off the pale as it is, so the pressure build up must have been significant. Well I cleaned it up and sanitized the lid and airlock and put them back on and went about my busuness. At some point later that day, the krausen came back up and clogged that airlock again and it did the exact same thing. Lid blew off and yeast mess all over the place.

I cleaned it all up a second time and placed the lid back on yet again. This time the beer had fermented out enough to keep the krausen down and out of the airlock. I am not to concerned about infection or contamination as the brew was very active and I believe the CO2 blanket kept it protected.

My next batches will definately have blow off tubes instead of the darned airlocks I assure you.

Here's to "Explosive Brews" :ban:

Salute! :mug:
 
Whenever I pitch on a cake, I cool the wort to the low end of the range. Doesn't stop blow-offs, but it helps.
 
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