Blew the top on my carboy!

My Imperial IPA blew the top off my carboy last night. There is still a foam snake escaping from the carboy.

My thought was that I would wait until the snake stops moving for a couple hours, sanitize my blow off cap (and maybe the interior of the carboy neck?) and reattach.

Does this sound reasonable?

You should set up a blow-off tube. Read this: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/blow-off-tube-set-up-69091/

Also, if you are fermenting a 5 gal batch, you should be doing so in a vessel at least 6.5 gals in size. The extra space gives the yeast the room needed to do their thing.

Lastly, you may want to check your temp. A very active fermentation can be because your wort is fermenting at too high of a temp. Most ale yeasts perform best at 65-70F. Check the specs on the yeast you are using. If you ferment at too high of a temp you may be bringing some off-flavors to the party. Give this a read: http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter8-1-3.html If you haven't picked up his book yet, do so. You will be using it for a long time.

Good luck.

Sure. Infections are relatively unlikely during so much yeast activity. It would be like trying to plan a revolution during a stampede. You can always attach some blowoff tubing to the neck of the carboy, too.

I don't believe you. Need pix!

Tried twice to post this picture w/o success:

http://www.mediafire.com/i/?3d5llmvzzw51cgi

Attached a blow off tube yesterday (although by noon yesterday the foam snake had ceased to pillage the carboy and its environs.)

The ferment is at the perfect temp for the yeast, if not a little at the low end during most of the day.

This was a 2.5 gallon batch in a 3 gallon carboy, it was my first time working with this size carboy.

I had some problems with my calculation of the volume of the wort after boil. I ended up with about 1 gallon of highly concentrated wort. I went back and boiled more water, cooled it to 60 degrees and added it to the water. The wort had already krausened but the addition of new water (and lots of new oxygen in the water) made that yeast go nuts.

I anticipate a very high alcohol beer, although it smells citrusy and really delicious.

maltoftheearth said:

This was a 2.5 gallon batch in a 3 gallon carboy

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If I had to guess, I would say that is your issue. Most folks ferment their 5 gal batches in a 6.5 gal carboy. Get a bigger carboy for the next batch. Most importantly, don't worry about it. Everything is going to be great. RDWHAHB!