Fermenter Blow off!

Just brewed an American Wheat. Oxygenated with pure O2 and pitched Kolsh yeast from a starter made 24 hours before brew day. Wheat was aprox 1.049 SG. When I do this I typically get a pretty good Krausen head after aprox 8 hours. Today I awoke to find no Krausen head. The temp is around 60* in a water bath. I gave the carboy a little shake and suddenly all of this gas was released from the wort shoot liquid out of the 3 piece air lock aprox 1 foot in the air. The head space that was void of life was now full of tiny bubbles.

What would have caused this (and don't say my shaking of the carboy!)? It seems if it was fermenting then I would have seen a Krausen head and airlock activity. I have never seen such a sudden release of gas from a liquid by simply shaking it...unless it was my beer before I drank it!

Based upon the tiny bubbles I think it was CO2 and not O2. I simply cleaned the airlock and will let it do its think...no more shaking!!!

Any thoughts on what was happening?

Weird. Maybe the airlock was somehow clogged, and it was building up pressure but it was all dissolved CO2 and not being released from the wort (like in a bottle for instance). Then when you gave it a nudge the airlock became unstuck and let the gas start coming out of solution (like in a bottle for instance).

Your airlock was plugged hence the no krausen.

Frodo said:

Weird. Maybe the airlock was somehow clogged, and it was building up pressure but it was all dissolved CO2 and not being released from the wort (like in a bottle for instance). Then when you gave it a nudge the airlock became unstuck and let the gas start coming out of solution (like in a bottle for instance).

Click to expand...

I actually gave it a good swirl and not just a little nudge. I am pretty sure the airlock wasn't stuck.

Just checked and all of the small bubbles have dropped back down to almost nothing again. Think I will just leave it alone and let it do its thing.

NEED MORE PATIENCE!!!