Mead in the airlock!

Thar she blows!
Newbie quiery again, is for mead so stuck it here instead of the beginner's for beer. Is Joe's Ancient Orange Mead. Put it together at home, went back to college, then came back a week later. The airlock was filled with mead! It had foamed up and gone into the airlock. So I pulled it out and gave a quick clean. Next week, same thing, cleaned it. If thios happens again, should I just leave it be to avoid conaminates, or should I keep cleaning it so the airlock doesn't get contaminated?

Mead usually doesn't have a large kreusen head to it. Sounds like you're overfilling your carboy/fermenter or using one that's too small.

Maybe you need to invest in blow-off tube equipment.

Tripled a 1-gallon recipe, but I don't think I tripled the space I was suppsoed to give from the top. That is probably what the issue is.

That would be what...3 gals plus the volume of honey.

What size fermenter are you using?

What you probably should do next time is don't fill your carboy up all the way- leave some space between the top of your must and the neck, with some extra juice kept bottled and sterile elswhere so when the initial ferment settles down, you can just top her up with the extras and cut down on your mess.

homebrewer_99:
3 gal fermenter, as apposed to the 1 gal that they suggested for the 1 gal batch.

OdinOneEye:
Cool screen name. I didn't fill it the the top, left about 3-4 inches space. The recipe said 3 inches, but that was for the 1 gal batch, so I probably should have increased it. I like the idea of storing a bit extra to top it off with later, Iwill have to do that with my next batch.

tahlorn said:

Tripled a 1-gallon recipe, but I don't think I tripled the space I was suppsoed to give from the top. That is probably what the issue is.

Click to expand...

You hit it on the head here i reckon - The Joe's Ancient Mead doesn't need to be messed with - the instructions for it state 'don't f&ck about trying to be clever with this one'. I've read loads of reports that if you do it by the book it performs. If you tripled the recipe then tripling the head space volume would work next time.

I got quite a lot of foam in a 1G of that recipe. But instead of an airlock I used a sanitized ballooon:
I put the baloon on the carboy/jug and puncture it (with a needle). It fills and then starts releasing co2 when the inside preasure is high enough to open the puncture.

It got some foam up to the neck and into the balloon, but after 2 weeks I replaced it with a new sanitixed and punctured baloon.
it makes a nice, disposable airlock I think ;^)

Mead is bubbling steady after 4 weeks, but it is clearing nicely!