Massive Carboy Overflow, Help!

First batch of home brew. I brewed a partial extract double IPA yesterday. OG was 1.075. I chilled the wort with a immersion chiller to about 70 degrees and added to a 5 gallon glass Carboy. I added 2 smack packs of Wyeast 1056 to Carboy and put on airlock. I put the Carboy in my basement which sits at 55 degrees ambient. I placed the Carboy in a sink full of water with a fish tank heater set at 68 degrees to keep the temperature around 68.

I woke up this morning (12 hours from yeast pitch) and the wort overflowed and lost almost 1.5 gallons of wort (see before and after photos. Upon discovery I took off airlock and sanitized/ cleaned it out with starsan and replaced the airlock. Water temp is still holding at 68 degrees.

I have heard of blow-off, but this was seriously over a gallon of lost wort. I expected some blowoff since I had a high OG and not much headspace in the Carboy.

Am I in trouble? Did I screw up somewhere? Is the beer ok?

Note: I was very carful of sanitizing everything to lower risk of infection.

Whoa. Normally a blowoff tube would have helped...but you still would have lost a LOT of beer anyway. Let it ride. It'll be beer...just a lot less than you planned.

The level inside and outside the carboy are at equilibrium. I'm concerned your carboy may be broken. I also see no indication that anything was blowing out of that airlock. I'm hope it was jut blowoff. If so you're fine, if not I'm very sorry for your loss.

Did you have a blow off tube connected? Something looks seriously wrong about that.

If you did have a blow off tube connected, was it in the wort? That could've started a siphon, but I have never seen that much wort lost to blow-off.

bbrim said:

The level inside and outside the carboy are at equilibrium. I'm concerned your carboy may be broken. I also see no indication that anything was blowing out of that airlock. I'm hope it was jut blowoff. If so you're fine, if not I'm very sorry for your loss.

Click to expand...

Oh man I didn't even notice this. Drain the basin, you may have a bigger problem.

bbrim said:

The level inside and outside the carboy are at equilibrium. I'm concerned your carboy may be broken. I also see no indication that anything was blowing out of that airlock. I'm hope it was jut blowoff. If so you're fine, if not I'm very sorry for your loss.

Click to expand...

This. That's not a blow off, your carboy is broken.

Sorry for your loss


Edit: Be careful when you reach down to pull the drain plug. Carboy glass is not tempered and can be extremely sharp.

Something's not right. Only 12 hours after pitching? Was there a bunch of gunk in the airlock? Otherwise, I'm tempted to agree with bbrim that it seems like a broken carboy. No way that yeast blows off that much, that quickly, at that temperature. Something else is wrong.

If you look at the picture on the left it looks like there is a little wort seeping out already. You can see the amber color diffusing into the water from the carboy.

RIP fermenter

This thread makes me sad.

Yeah as someone said it looks like your carboy has a crack. None went into the airlock. That water in there should be brown as well.

I don't primary in glass for fear of cracking but it looks like that happened before fermentation even started.

I would dump all of the beer. If you don't you risk whatever was in that tub soaking back into the carboy.

You could also just siphon it out and put it in a different fermenter and risk it. Not much more work and you have everything to gain!

Get yourself a better bottle OP.

There is still a lot of outdated information and fear that drives a lot of people towards using glass. There are really no benefits to glass IMO, and certainly a lot of bad things about using glass(as you are currently experiencing)

Well, it's official. First batch took a crash landing everyone died on board. Carboy is broken. Looks like the airlock clogged in the night and blew the bottom off the Carboy.

Almost teared up when the sink drained and that wonderful hop aroma went down with it.

Thanks for everyone's help. I am already planning on a redo, and it will be called "Redemption IPA".

I took a photo of our lost Carboy. RIP

Damn, at least it was a clean break and not a whole lotta shards from the looks of it. On the up side if you file down the edges you have a damn big glass vase.

This is why I'm never using glass. Ever.

Ugh that sucks bro.

That looks like it broke from thermal shock.

Wow that is crazy. Could've been worse!

I use 5 gallon carboys for aging and aging only.

Yep. Looks like hard lesson learned. Always use a blow off tube for primary and then you can switch over to an airlock after fermentation completes. Better bottle brotha.

I could chip out a really nice knife or a huge spear point out of the bottom.