First Brew Mishap

Hi all,

This weekend I tried my first brew (a red ale extract kit). Everything seemed to go great and my fermentation started well, but quickly got out of hand. Within 48 hours, the pressure had built high enough to pop the airlock off my carboy and drench my closet (the best cool, dark place in my house) with beer! Not a fun mess to clean up.

Where did I go wrong? My initial guess is the fermentation temperature was probably too high. Do you agree? If so, I was planning on placing my carboy in a water bath to better control the temperature for round two. Is this a good practice?

Also, I figured since the airlock had popped off and the beer was exposed to air for about 12+ hours, the beer was spent and I poured it down the drain . Am I correct that there's no way to salvage a batch that's been exposed to air?

Thanks in advance for your input!

-Darren

darren28 said:

Where did I go wrong? My initial guess is the fermentation temperature was probably too high. Do you agree? If so, I was planning on placing my carboy in a water bath to better control the temperature for round two. Is this a good practice?

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My guess is that your temp was too high, or you didn't have enough head-space in the carboy. Were you using a 5 or 6.5 gallon carboy?

The water bath will help with the temp control.

darren28 said:

Also, I figured since the airlock had popped off and the beer was exposed to air for about 12+ hours, the beer was spent and I poured it down the drain . Am I correct that there's no way to salvage a batch that's been exposed to air?

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You probably should not have dumped it. Since there was so much pressure and gas/foam coming OUT of the carboy, it would have been difficult for anything nasty to get INTO the carboy. I wouldn't ever dump a batch unless it started growing hair or tasted like vinegar. I would just hope for the best and continue with the process until I found that things actually HAD spoiled.


-walker

Walker-san said:

My guess is that your temp was too high, or you didn't have enough head-space in the carboy. Were you using a 5 or 6.5 gallon carboy?

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I was using a 5 gal carboy (I have a 5 gal and a 6.5 gal). Would it be better to use the 6.5 gal for primary fermentation and the 5 gal for secondary? The only reason I used the 5 gal for primary was so it would be easier to tell when I added enough water to get to the 5 gal level.

Walker-san said:

. Since there was so much pressure and gas/foam coming OUT of the carboy, it would have been difficult for anything nasty to get INTO the carboy. I wouldn't ever dump a batch unless it started growing hair or tasted like vinegar. I would just hope for the best and continue with the process until I found that things actually HAD spoiled.

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Good to know. Thanks!!

Yeah, you should have used the 6.5 gal carboy for primary and the 5 gal for secondary.

You need the extra space because in primary fermentation it foams up a big head of gunky foam (kraeusen) and fills up the extra space. You could have prevented the eruption by using a blow-off hose instead of an airlock, but you'd have lost quite a bit of your wort that way.

Next time you'll know. And I agree with Walker that your beer would have almost surely been fine.

darren28 said:

I was using a 5 gal carboy (I have a 5 gal and a 6.5 gal). Would it be better to use the 6.5 gal for primary fermentation and the 5 gal for secondary? The only reason I used the 5 gal for primary was so it would be easier to tell when I added enough water to get to the 5 gal level.

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There's your problem. Yes, use the 6.5 gallon for primary and the 5 gallon for secondary. You need some airspace for fermentation so the 6.5 accomplishes that. You want to minimize airspace in the secondary, so the 5 accomplishes that.

There's nothing to say you won't have a blowover with the 6.5 at times. However, with a hearty fermentation in a 5 gallon carboy with a 5 gallon batch, it's almost a given.

EDIT: cweston is a faster typist than myself.

darren28 said:

I was using a 5 gal carboy (I have a 5 gal and a 6.5 gal). Would it be better to use the 6.5 gal for primary fermentation and the 5 gal for secondary?

Click to expand...

Absolutely, Use the 6.5 gallon carboy for the primary! This gives you some space above the beer for the foam to accumulate without blowing out of the top of the vessel.

As for making sure you have the right amount of volume in the fermenter....

Put 5 gallons of water into the 6.5 gallon carboy and mark the outside of the thing with a marker. Or... stand a stick up next to the carboy and put a mark on the stick at the right place.

When marking your 5 gallon point, use a bottling bucket or 1 gallon milk-jugs to measure the water out.

For reference: The stated volume of a carboy is right about at the point where the glass starts to taper toward the neck. If you fill them to the top, you get about another 1/2 gallon of liquid. A 5 gallon carboy will hold about 5.5 gallons if filled to the tippy-top. A 6.5 gallon carboy will hold about 7 gallons if filled to the tippy-top.

-walker

Take your 6.5 gallon carboy (assuming it's empty) and fill it with 5 gallons of water. Mark the level (someone suggested nail polish). Then you won't have that problem again.

If you DO use the 5 gallon carboy as primary, you should have a blowoff tube. And yeah, without actual evidence that the beer had gone bad, I would have continued the process. Let it finish fermenting and take a sample. From all that I've learned in doing this, it seems that people tend to get too paranoid about the brewing process, that it truly is more forgiving than is generally understood.

EDIT: Well, now, I guess my response was wholly redundant.

Great. Thanks everyone for your input. Now I'm ready for Round 2!

I can confirm that blowing the lid off the fermentor (I use buckets as primaries) and having it off for a couple of days doesn't mean the batch is bad.
My black chocolate stout came out quite nicely.

CO2 is heavier than oxygen, so the CO2 will keep the oxygen out. Also the fermentation that is still going (producing CO2) on will help to push the O2 out.

I agree... and use a blow off tube on the 6.5 as well... I have 5.5 gallons of Belgian Dubbel going in my 6.5 gallon carboy right now and it has pushed about .25 gallons of foam out of my airlock since I went to bed last night!!! Depending on what yeast you use and what temp it is fermenting at, you can still get a mess... (which I need to go clean up right now ::sigh:

Also, never dump a batch until it has been in bottles for a while and you KNOW it won't get any better!!! You'd be shocked at how many beers will age out to a nice flavor, even if they don't taste too good when they are first carbonated

later,
mikey