Cherries in the Snow - Primary Fermentation

I try to make this, a couple months back, and I used a glass carboy for primary fermentation; it didn't make it any further because the airlock got clogged with cherry crap and exploded. Should I be using a bucket instead of a carboy? Anyone else had sucess with this recipe or another fruit beer?

Anytime you're adding fruit to a fermenter, prepare for a massive restart of the fermentation. You must use a blowoff tube, because the amount of CO2 created will overwhelm the airlock, plus you'll (as you found out) get solids lodged in the airlock too.

Awesome. Thanks for the info.

One of my customers did this recipe, and did it in a 5 gallon carboy. Blew the airlock completely off. His "better half" referred to it as "Cherries on the ceiling." Needless to say, she wasn't happy!

steve

Yes, blow off tube.
Get a 3-4 foot section of 1 1/4 (or 1 1/2) inch OD tubing. One end will jam in tightly in the mouth of the carboy, the other end in a juice jug half filled with water. This is just a large air lock, and it will handle all the large crap that blows out during "violent" primary fermentation.

You can leave this on for the duration, or swap it with a regular air lock after 3 or 4days.

btw, I made this about 10 years ago-it was awesome. I drank one case as soon as it carbed, the other was stored in the basement for six months. The aged case was definetly better.

i just brewed a cherry beer using not the recipe for cherries in the snow, but still it had 8.5 lbs of cheeries in the primary. definitely use a blow off, i did my primary in a bucket not a carboy and ended up not quite reaching the cap so i did not have any true "blow off." carboy is much different, i would have had blow off based on the reduced space.

I'm drinking this (with an adjustment) and just use a blow-off as said. Also don't expect it to taste sweet. I had to sweeten my with a little splenda when bottling so that it would be sorta like a lambic but I really like it and have gotten thumbs up on it.