Lesson Learned : Blow Off Tube

For the first time today, I found out I needed to listen to my instinct in brewing, and use a blow off tube...

Only I didn't heed that advice.

I brewed a 1.101 stout yesterday. I pitched a baby starter, and 2 packs of wyeast 1084. I had the temp at 64* when I went to bed in the swamp cooler in the bath tub.

Went to work, checked it this morning and found around 2 inches of krausen it in already. Cool deal, healthy fermentation takin off!

I'm at work, and thinking.. Hrmm.. I bet that damn thing is overflowing that airlock.. I had around 5.75 gallons in a 6.5 gallon carboy... Not much space, but I never really get wild and crazy blow off, and never enough to get up in the neck.

I come home late around 8pm, and look in the guest bathroom.. I've got wort sprayed around 6 feet up the shower wall, and the tub it's sitting in, the water is now a nice chocolate brown. The positive, is the bung stayed in, and the airlock cleared it's self, so not real problems. Nasties can't get it with the crap coming out!!

Anyways- Hooked up some hosing, found out after I cut my extra racking cane a bit short, that it's too small OD to fit the tubing and the bung, so I cut off the bottom of my airlock and made it all fit. Put it in a growler of sanitizer and it's going along just fine. Added some ice and got the temp down back to 64 from 68 and we're fine now...

So lesson learned... Don't over fill your primary, I should have boiled down and gotten a higher gravity, and done a 2 hour boil, and I shouldn't have filled so high. Luckily, I did in a way, as I lost some good sweet beer, but I must say.. My guest room smells like a chocolate factory!!!!

Use a blow off seriously. If you over pitch, or have a big beer, it's paramount.

At least it was in a shower - easy cleanup.

JonM said:

At least it was in a shower - easy cleanup.

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Yeah, that what the wife said. She was off and said the dog was in the room barking at the shower.. She could hear it going off, but never bothered to look.

A quick wipe down and it's all clean again. Still... if you are close to the limits.. Don't use an airlock, it's worthless. I had to kill and airlock to make a blow off.. Now I need to buy a new one!

dude, you know we all look at these threads to see pics of the mess! where's the pics!!?? haha
You would think enough people would take heed after reading about a couple of these, but I do the same $hite sometimes. You were already in good mind having it in the spare shower.
hope it turns out for you.

Yeah I thought to take a pic. But I was so tired and ten saw that mess and just wanted to say forget it and leave it. Instead I cleaned up fast and fashioned a blow off tube.

All was well this morning. Still blowing sanitizer out of the jug!

welcome to the club lol. had the wife call me one day as I was driving into work. checked it before i left and it was bubbling nicely nothing out of the ordinary. got ready for work and headed out. got a call half way to work with a text that said wtf is this mess! had to walk her through the process of making a blow off setup over the phone lol.

BrewLou said:

welcome to the club lol. had the wife call me one day as I was driving into work. checked it before i left and it was bubbling nicely nothing out of the ordinary. got ready for work and headed out. got a call half way to work with a text that said wtf is this mess! had to walk her through the process of making a blow off setup over the phone lol.

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I think mine knew I would have done that, and she purposely didn't look at the carboy for that reason!

I didn't lose much beer at all, and cleaned the mess up pretty easy. The nasty part was the 18g rope bucket in the tub with water, that looked like sewage water, with floating krausen in it. Yuck.