Fermenter Stopper Shot Up To Ceiling????

This is about my 7th brew, I made a batch of Blue Moon last night, and when I woke up the rubber stopper and 2-way filter was on the floor and beer was on the ceiling and wall and floor (not much but still a mess).






I replaced the stopper and there is fermentation occurring at 2 bubbles per second! What the heck is happening? I made 2 batches and the other one is just fine (in a 6 gallon bucket). This one I siphoned into my 5 gallon glass carboy.

The temp. in the house is 75 F, it did not get shaken up, there is foam at the top of the brew in the carboy and bubbles are providing head retention for some reason. I used the yeast packet that it came with.



The bubbling is still happening, going through the water and out of the top of the filter.

It's just a vigorous fermentation--nothing to worry about. If it's too much for the airlock to handle, you can always rig up a blow-off tube (replace the airlock with a piece of tubing that leads into a bucket of sanitizer).

it's awesome, that's what it is!

5 gallon carboy with little to no headspace plus vigorous fermentation leads to blow off. If you don't switch to a blow off tube you will be changing airlocks every 6 hours for a couple days.

Some of my most out of control fermentations were from wheat beers. Kind of impressive, but messy. I use a 1 inch blowoff tube going into a jug of star San.

ok, dropped the air temp down (dont' have an extra fridge for cold crashing) and also ran a tube from the stopper into a bowl with starsan.
Weird gargling sound, it's a little comical.

Thanks!!!

Could this have been avoided if I used Safbrew yeast, or if I had cold crashed?

Setup looks good, except be careful of letting your beer get light struck. It'll skunk your beer. I would cover it.

spaceyaquarius said:

Could this have been avoided if I used Safbrew yeast, or if I had cold crashed?

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Not really. 75*F ambient is simply too warm for fermenting beer (exception - Belgian Saisons). Nottingham just happens to be an ale yeast that likes temps about 5*F or so cooler than other ale yeasts. You're going to have to take steps next batch to keep the fermenter in the 60's if you can even if you use another dry yeast like US-05.

Cold crashing is a technique that's used after fermentation is complete. Rapidly dropping the beer temp into the 30's for a few days will result in clearer beer and a firmer yeast cake in the bottom of the fermenter.

OK, so if I need a cooler temp than 75, but my house it at 75 F, and cold crashing is for after fermentation, then where does it need to go? I don't have a garage.

A number of cheap and easy-ish options are available to cool your carboy.

Get a keg tub and put the carboy in it then fill it with water. Keep an eye on the temp, adding ice or blue ice as necessary to keep the water at the proper temp.

Get a keg tub and put the carboy in it then fill it about halfway with water. Place an old T-shirt over the carboy (the neck of the carboy through the neck of the shirt) and drape the shirt down low enough so that the bottom is in the water. Then aim a fan at the shirt and water. The moving air will evaporate the water as it wicks up the shirt, cooling the whole carboy. I think this is good for around 5-10 degrees of temp difference from ambient, depending on the humidity.

After that you're looking at a fridge with temp control or some other way to introduce cool air in an enclosed space with the carboy in it. Search around for "fermentation chamber" and you'll get some ideas.

As said above, this brew might be a bit off due to the high temps. Not too many yeasts like 75 deg F, so I'd recommend you look into some of these cooling options if this beer does end up tasting off. But no worries, it will still be beer...

As others have mentioned 75 degree ambient is wayyy to high for nottingham.

That being said, with a fast fermenting yeast like nottingham all those esters and funky flavors are going to be produced in the first 36-48 hours of fermentation. So basically the damage is done. Yeast can do a pretty good job cleaning up after themselves and re-absorbing some of the off flavors IF they stay active.

I would not try to lower the temp on this batch. By reducing the temp you are going to cause the yeast to drop out and become less active and therefore prevent them from cleaning up after the fermentation.

I would keep it at the same temp you started at and gently rouse the yeast by rocking the fermentor every few days.

There are some cheap techniques to keeping a carboy cool that others have mentioned and they work alright (but not great and not consistant).

A digital temperature controller with a chest freezer or refrigerator is one of the best investments you can make in the quality of your beer.

You are really lucky to get through 6 brews before that happened. I suggest that you start EVERY fermentation with a blow off tube set up.

Ok. I think it was the fact that it was winter and it just got into the 70-75 F livingroom temp average in the last 2 weeks.

I may switch to Safbrew and do the water bath thing that 2bluewagons suggested.

Thanks for the info BigFloyd (pinkfloyd reference?).

I don't think I need to cold crash, I am a perfectionist when it comes to siphoning.

So if I get a mini-fridge, will I have to buy one of those temperature regulators (like the ones on Amazon) that allow for higher temperature control that it was made for?

Hmmmmmmmm.

If you buy a mini fridge for fermentation, check out this thread for info on building an inexpensive temperature controller, which will allow your fridge to go into the 60s for ale fermentation (or the 40s for lagers).

spaceyaquarius said:

I don't think I need to cold crash, I am a perfectionist when it comes to siphoning.

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It matters not how good you are at siphoning. Cold crashing helps drop out the particles that are suspended in the beer. If you have the means to do it, I'd do it.

spaceyaquarius said:

So if I get a mini-fridge, will I have to buy one of those temperature regulators (like the ones on Amazon) that allow for higher temperature control that it was made for?

Hmmmmmmmm.

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Yep. An STC-1000. They're very useful. I have three.