Yesterday I made 6 gals of Ken Schramm's Ginger Melomel.
This thing was completed by 11AM and was looking great right up until 11:30 PM when I went to bed.
I woke up and went to add some nutrient and while heading down the stairs I could smell the a wonderful ginger scent and was thinking "another successful ferm start" but then I turned the corner...
This thing had just exploded everywhere, the dart board, the air hockey table, the walls, the ceiling and of course the rug and carpet. What a freakin' mess!! That ginger sure must pack a wallop.
I don't know how long the carboy was sitting open to the elements. I really hope there isn't any contamination and it will move forward successfully from here.
Any thoughts?
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Oh man what a mess, sorry for your game room!
But I used to brew Kombucha and on the secondary ferment to add carbonation if you put ginger in there or fresh pineapple you had to be careful of kombucha geysers! Something in ginger must really be a boost to yeast.
My guess is that if it was active enough to explode, then it has enough CO2 to protect it from contamination. I say put it back under lock if you can, let it keep fermenting. If it goes bad, then know you. If not, you've saved some potentially good mead.
Next time primary in a bucket, with a clean, sanitized towel over it, or if you're worried about keeping it open (enough CO2 is being produced to create a type of barrier) then lid it. Larger opening = less of a shaped charge/geyser generator since the escaping gas has more area to leave from.
Wow, if I didn't know what those carboys were, I'd say Freddy Kruger had been around
My roommate was in the other room, and said it sounded like a gun going off. Then she saw some kind of red liquid slowly oozing out from under the pantry door. She was scared to open it
Ginger Bomb!
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