Inadvertant Open Fermentation- just go with it?

I brewed a belgian pale on wednesday last week, it was using the blowoff tube on Thursday but by Friday morning it had settled down. So, I swapped the blowoff for a bubbler, moved the fermentor to the adjacent room, and went on my happy way to deer camp.

I came back Tuesday night to a blaze orange Carboy cap on my basement floor and my wall and treadmill 'decorated' with krausen from this beer. Clogged bubbler.

I'm thinking that moving it somehow kicked started the yeast again. The krausen was also pretty nasty looking but I think that was from it being dehydrated from the open top. At first I thought this batch a goner, but it smells ok really. Once I jostled it a bit the krausen started falling back.

Anyone ever had a gusher-calm-gusher type Belgian fermentation, and also does the krausen start to look pretty nasty for those of you that have experience with open fermenting?

I plan to taste in a couple days if it smells/looks ok.

Thanks!!

I'm sure it's fine...with all that activity, you have co2 blowing out of the top, that's gonna keep a lot of stuff from getting it.

I wouldn't worry.

Cool. I was worried the go-stop-go type ferment was a sign that a bug got in, but I guess the infections that get into homebrew probably take much longer and don't blow out airlocks (?).

Will report back on the hydrometer tasting!

Edit: From my timeline the top could have been off for 3-5 days.

I had a pale ale do the same thing to me. I put it aside to ferment and didn't check on it over a week or so. When I did, the airlock had blown off and there was a mess. Like you said, the krausen looked bad, being all dried out. I sweated it out till the day it was kegged, thinking it would be ruined, but it ended up just fine.

hydrometer sample tastes good! 1.005.

dry hopping with 2 oz glacier and 1 oz cascade in progress