Never heard of this before

My blow-off tube pulled about a gallon of water up into my fermentor. I've been brewing beer, wine, cider and mead for about a year now. I lurk on this forum and others inorder to answer my many questions, but I've never heard of a beer being ruined this way. Here's the set-up...My fermentation room temperature is pretty steady as long as the outside temperature is relatively steady. Being late November, I have a small heater in there now. In the room now I have: blueberry mead aging, Edwort's Apple Wine finishing up, blackberry wine finishing up, cider about 3 weeks into fermentation, black ipa clearing up in the primary, and now a ruined batch of german alt. I tend to have an obsessive personality, so I check on my booze often, and all the temps have been very stable around 65 degrees. The alt, black ipa, and cider were all on blow-off tubes and the only one to pull any water even alittle into the tube was the alt. I just can't wrap my head around the physics of it and was hoping someone here could educate me. This was the first beer that my brother and I brewed together, so that motivated me so seek out an answer. Oh, and a search brought me nothing even related. Thank you.

The Alt had to be warmer to start with for some reason. That cannot happen unless there is a significant temperature drop. That said, were you using star san? How much got sucked into the carboy? It might still be okay.

That could happen easily if you put your blow-off jug on top of the fermenter or higher then the fermernter. That's why you want to keep it on the floor or lower then fermenter.


wrong:


right:

It's been in there for 6-7 weeks all the way though fermentation, so the temp was stable. I was using star san, but it was around a gallon. 6 gallon carboy is almost full and the batch was 5 gallons. I thought it had to be a temperature thing, but it wasn't, it couldn't be. I'm totally stumped.

If you were using a better bottle for a fermenter and somehow it got squeezed while the hose was in contact with the beer in the fermenter, you could have created a vaccum that started the flow going till it lost suction in your discharge bucket.

Never ever let your blow off tube in your fermenter get close to your beer.

Just a thought.

"That could happen easily if you put your blow-off jug on top of the fermenter or higher then the fermernter. That's why you want to keep it on the floor or lower then fermenter"

Then how would you explain the fact that NO water went into the tubes of the cider and black ipa? Thanks for playing...

All non-BS responses are much appreciated

jmiller3mma said:

"That could happen easily if you put your blow-off jug on top of the fermenter or higher then the fermernter. That's why you want to keep it on the floor or lower then fermenter"

Then how would you explain the fact that NO water went into the tubes of the cider and black ipa? Thanks for playing...

All non-BS responses are much appreciated

Click to expand...

It depends from the pressure building up and then changing on the inside of a particular fermenter. If the pressure inside a fermenter suddenly drops, then the water from the blow-off jug gets sucked-in.
P.S. why are you being such a crab-arse about it? I'm just trying to help. If you don't like my answer, then just don't listen to me. No need to insult me like this.

I use glass on all my beer, just feels sexier than the better bottles. I have 2 bb's, but they're dedicated to wine kits

Was the alt closer to the heater? Closer to a door/window/air vent/crack/etc.? Was the alt recently brewed?

I agree it either had to be from squeezing the fermenter or a change in temperature.

sorry, I didn't see the pictures or think anyone would make that mistake.

the alt is inches, like 2 or 3 maybe, closer to the heater(infered, so it pretty much all goes straight up). it would be the cooling that would pull the water in like that though. it would have had to heat up to a high temperature, forcing out a majority of the air, then cooled back to the temp of the room, sucking in the water to replace the displaced air. it just seems like it would need to get really hot to displace that much air. who knows, maybe that's how it went down. i was just wondering if anyone has seen a similar thing happen

why not use an airlock instead of a hose and bucket/jar?

I had the tube and bucket for the initial blow-off. i meant to rack it into secondary to clear, but haven't found the time with work and the new baby. and from what i've read here, secondary isn't as important as we've been told, so i procrastinated a bit.

jmiller3mma said:

sorry, I didn't see the pictures or think anyone would make that mistake.

the alt is inches, like 2 or 3 maybe, closer to the heater(infered, so it pretty much all goes straight up). it would be the cooling that would pull the water in like that though. it would have had to heat up to a high temperature, forcing out a majority of the air, then cooled back to the temp of the room, sucking in the water to replace the displaced air. it just seems like it would need to get really hot to displace that much air. who knows, maybe that's how it went down. i was just wondering if anyone has seen a similar thing happen

Click to expand...

Maybe you had a change in barometric pressure? That would do it, too. Usually it's temperature changes, with the beer temperature lowering and sucking in the blow off "stuff". But a change in barometric pressure will do it too.

jmiller3mma said:

"That could happen easily if you put your blow-off jug on top of the fermenter or higher then the fermernter. That's why you want to keep it on the floor or lower then fermenter"

Then how would you explain the fact that NO water went into the tubes of the cider and black ipa? Thanks for playing...

All non-BS responses are much appreciated

Click to expand...

I didn't see this before I answered. Now I'm sorry I tried to help. Really an un-called for response in a very friendly helpful forum.

Yup, my thoughts exactly.