Belgian Tripel - Blow Off?

I've been a member for a while, but this is the first time I've needed to post (thanks to the awesome search!).

I brewed a Norther Brewer Belgian Tripel extract kit on Sunday morning and I came home yesterday (Tuesday evening) to a brown airlock. I rinsed it with warm water, let it sit in Star San, then put it back. By midnight (6 hours later), I had to do it again and once more this morning. Now, this morning when I took the airlock off, the pressure release was not as bad last night.

My O.G. was 1.073 and and it is fermenting at 73 degrees with Wyeast 1338 Trappist.

My question is, how long does a big beer tend to kick up foam? Should I be worried that I am leaving it for 10 hours or am I past the worst of it? I really like the color of my ceiling...

I'd say that if the krausen is still pushing up into the airlock, then you should still be worried. I had the entire lid blow off mine once and make a huge mess. If you have to leave it, put it in the bathtub and put a garbage bag over it.

Great.... I'm at work right now and this morning the krausen was still coming up. Maybe I should run home for lunch.

I use a blow off for every single batch I do. It's a rubber stopper, and a couple of feet of 1/2" hose, inserted into the mouth of a 750ml Belgian bottle 1/2 full of Starsan solution.

Way too easy to not do it and I run no risk of repainting any of my rooms with sweet wort, lol.

Thanks guys. So far in about 14 batches I have never had this problem. I will run home and switch it to a blow off during lunch today.

I might add, I'd DEFINITELY use a blowoff for any yeast of a Belgian strain. All of my Belgians have been complete krausen monsters.

Got home and it looked like it calmed down quite a bit. I just cleaned the airlock again and threw a plastic bag over it. Next time I will definitely use a blow off though so I won't have to babysit it as much.

Thanks again!

I had two explosions in my first three batches. I picked up some anti-foam drops for the last batch I did and they worked great. I did 6 gal of hefeweizen with an OG of 1.062 in a 6.5 gallon bucket, and had no problems. I could have probably done 6.5 gallons