Very Violent fermentation!

I pitched my yeast about 3 days ago. I went to check on it last night and I noticed that the lid on my air lock was off and on the ground. I looked a little closer and saw that foam had blown up and all over my primary fermenter. It made quite the mess! I am very new to home brewing and was wondering if this is a rare thing to happen or not???



Thanks

It can be normal. Called a blow off. You need to make a blow off tube. Take a piece of siphon tubing. Stick it through the stopper that your airlock currently resides in. Stick the other end into a tub/bottle/etc filled with water.

Look here:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/can-blow-off-tube-fit-fermenter-bucket-167585/

I found the same thing when I went to check on my Creme Ale this morning (day 3 also)...it was awesome that I caught it before it blew off....same thing happened a few weeks ago, but I had to find the airlock because it did blow. I think it is pretty common, that is why many use blow off tubes. I changed mine over to a blow off tube and it continued bubbling away. I just took my siphon hose and stuck it into the airlock tube (all sanitized, of course), then put it into a jar of sanitizer. You'll be amazed how much C02 blows through there is you have an active germentation.

Same thing happened to me with a Kolsch style i brewed up in an Ale Pail. I used the 3/8" (i think) tubing from my siphon and shoved that into the hole in the lid. Fit pretty snuggly and definitely solved the blowoff issue for the day. It proceeded to sound like a backed up toilet as it bubbled like crazy for another week.

I've been lucky enough to only need a blow off tube once. More times than not this happens because the fermentation temps got a little too high.

Yambor44 said:

I've been lucky enough to only need a blow off tube once. More times than not this happens because the fermentation temps got a little too high.

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Some yeasts just love to chug away, too. Trying to get a French Saison yeast or Bavarian Hefe yeast not to cause blowoff is tough unless you resort to fermcap and the like.