Carboy Blowout!

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arjackson37

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Hey everyone, so last week I brewed an American Pale Ale with a Brewer's Best extract kit. I rehydrated my yeast, pitched it into my carboy and placed the carboy into my closet where it can ferment at a steady 68 degrees. Everything so far had went according to plan. I checked the airlock the next day and there were occasional bubbles. A day later I come back and the entire stopper and air lock have been blown off of the carboy and foam had came out of the carboy and onto the floor! In an attempt to prevent another blow out I removed about 3/4 of a gallon of wort from the carboy and replaced the airlock and stopper. For the next 3 days I continued to get vigorous bubbling in the airlock but thankfully no blowouts.

My OG was 1.052 which is what the recipe called for.
I moved the wort to secondary today (8 days later) and took a gravity reading and it was 1.010. (The recipe called for 1.012-1.015).

Also I did a taste test and found the wort to have decent hop flavor but it had a slight watered-down flavor to it.

Should I be concerned with my low gravity reading of 1.010?
What are your thoughts about how the blowout incident will affect my wort?
What's up with the watered-down flavor?
 
What size carboy where you using? I think that kit comes with Nottingham dry yeast, right?

I would not have pulled out any wort, I would have just replaced the airlock with a blowoff tube.

The only effect I can see is that you will have less to bottle, a vigorous ferm is no problem. As to the watered down taste/gravity, did you do a partial boil? Maybe you overfilled with water?
 
A 5 gallon carboy. Should have probably put it in my 6.5 gallon fermenting bucket first.
Yes I did use Nottingham yeast.
 
The only blow out I ever had was when I did a primary in glass? It was a 6 gallon glass carboy, not the usual 6.5 plastic.
 
I almost had this happen to me. I caught it before hand and used a blow off tube. From now on I will use a blow off tube for the intense first days. Then go to a airlock.
 
I had a huge mess because of an extremely active fermentation. Beer was shooting out of the air lock; all over the wall and ceiling. Eventually, the airlock and stopper blew out. My lovely wife was not happy about the situation so I now use a blow off tube for all primary fermentations. The thing I don't like about the blow off tube is that it is a pain to clean.

Cheers,

Mike
 
...

Also I did a taste test and found the wort to have decent hop flavor but it had a slight watered-down flavor to it....

What's up with the watered-down flavor?


No worries. Lack of carbonation will often result in the watered-down taste.

Keyth
 
I had a fermenting bucket lid completely blow off. It blew beer and yeast all over my cabinet. I never found a clog in the airlock, but then again it must have been a violent ordeal. Ill never get those two hours of cleaning back....
 
I fermented in a 5gal carboy once. After staining my ceiling, I now have a 6.5 and 8 gal fermenter. Blow off tubes bug me with the amount of beer wasted.
 
I had the same watered down taste for my last brew, but you'll come to find out that is truly "green" beer. The effects of carbonation and aging in the bottle will go a long way.
Good rule of thumb to use a blow off tube for the first 48 hours whether in a carboy or bucket, cause you just never know :mug:
 

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