So I made my first brew yesterday. I went with an extract kit from MoreBeer, the American IPA. Took my OG and wound up with 1.072 which I was very surprised at. Expected OG was 1.054-1.062. Anyway, poured in my yeast and placed it in the closet to ferment. Checked it last night and it was happily fermenting away. Stick on thermometer read at about 70, my house sits around between 66-68 so there's not much I can do about the temp. I didn't rig a blow off tube as I was just following directions and hadn't heard of that yet. So, to the problem. This morning I check on it and apparently the activity was so high throughout the night that it overflowed into the airlock. Nothing major, just a little spillage on the top, but I have wort in the airlock now. Should I empty that out, and resanitize or can I leave it the way it is. I figure the damage if any is already done. The airlock was sanitized inside and out prior to its installation.
First brew sanitation question
- Thread starter Beck21
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
dickproenneke
Well-Known Member
Beck21 said:
If you dont have any tube laying around to make a blowoff then just pull out your airlock, clean, sanitize and put it back in. No harm done.
Cheers!
Kaz
Well-Known Member
+1 And if you hit your final volume when you transferred to the fermenter, then your O.G. is going to be in the range specified by the kit. With extract there is not much hit and miss except for not adding enough water. The number will be high due to insufficient mixing of the concentrated wort and top off water. Enjoy!
I pretty much followed directions to the letter. Was a 5 gal recipe, cooked with 3 gal, then added water to top off to 5. Took OG reading from final mix. Not sure where I misstepped. Went ahead and pulled off airlock, cleaned and sanitized and put back on. Mix is still happily fermenting away.
It is highly likely that the reason the gravity was off is because the top off water was not thoroughly mixed in when you took the reading (which is no big deal). If there was 5 gallons of beer, your gravity was what was predicted. It is common for gravity readings to be "off" when putting water in to bring it up to 5 gallons.
Like everyone says, clean and replace the airlock, or remove it altogether and place foil over the hole. If you don't clean the airlock, it will get full of yeast and hops, become blocked and pressure will build up eventually resulting in the airlock becoming a projectile with a stream of beer coming out behind it.
