Fermentation foam coming out airlock

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Jack-A-Roe

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My fermentation has foamed out into my airlock. Once fermentation slows should I clean my airlock? The airlock water is full of wort. Would this be a possible contamination problem if I leave it?
 
Quickly pull it out and clean and re sanitize it, then rig up an airlock blowoff tube...take your bottling wand, put a small slit in it...Heat it for a few minutes in hot water to soften, then do this.

Airlockbo2.jpg


Ailockbo1.jpg


then you'll be fine.
 
It happens to all of us once in awhile...That's why it is a good idea to have a backup blowoff setup. I have a three piece that I lost the top to, so I use that permanently as my backup...if it looks like the regular airlock is filly, I tear it off, and put the blowoff on.

Also, I have cut off the little criss-cross of the bottom of my airlocks, it helps keep goop from getting stuck in there...
 
In any case, stuff going OUT of the air lock is not a problem. If you do not suspect that anything can find its way back in, then you can safely leave it alone. It happens to everyone sooner or later.
 
In any case, stuff going OUT of the air lock is not a problem. If you do not suspect that anything can find its way back in, then you can safely leave it alone. It happens to everyone sooner or later.

True but it is a concern if the airlock becomes clogged with crud. It will build pressure and pop right off creating a terrible mess and possibly exposing your beer to contamination.
 
Quickly pull it out and clean and re sanitize it, then rig up an airlock blowoff tube...take your bottling wand, put a small slit in it...Heat it for a few minutes in hot water to soften, then do this.

Airlockbo2.jpg


Ailockbo1.jpg


then you'll be fine.



Does the jug for the blow off need to be sanitized.. should I use sanitizer in there? what about the tube itself.. do you need to submerge that in sanitizer?
 
Does the jug for the blow off need to be sanitized.. should I use sanitizer in there? what about the tube itself.. do you need to submerge that in sanitizer?

You should probably put san water or vodka in the bottle. Again to keep nasties from getting into the beer.
 
How long does it take for the foam to die down? I am assuming it is shortly after fermentation begins?
 
I never thought of puting a tube on an air lock before either- I just took the bung I use for my carboy down to Home Depot with me and found some cheap clear tubling.

1065-blow-off-tube-attached-bung.jpg


Then I put one side in a Homer Bucket with water and a little bit of Iodine.
 
Thanks for the blow off info and pictures Revvy! My Cal Common started going crazy! It's only my 6'th batch of beer (second all grain) so this is the first time I've had this happen. This was a great quick fix. Thanks!

-Jason
 
Great info, and great idea!!! I was going nuts, and thought for sure trying to mop up all the foam was going to infect my brew - it's going like crazy, and luckily I already had a length of food grade tubing, so now I can finally go back to sleep and not have to worry about waking up to a pool of beer and foam on the bench.

:mug:

Such an easy concept, I should have known haha.

Cheers!!
 
Good morning,

This morning I woke up to a weird sound and once I went over to my carboy I saw the airlock full of foam and bubbling. I thought it was going to pop off and a stream of wort will end up on the ceiling.:drunk:

Thanks to a quick search on my phone and you guys I was able to get this rigged up in no time. Once I removed the airlock a stream of air and foam hit me and it began foaming out the bottle. Attached the set up and everything was good. Besides smelling like wort before work and cleaning it all up it was a good experience.

My question was, once it dies down should I put the airlock back together or leave it as is till its done?

Thank you
 
Good morning,

My question was, once it dies down should I put the airlock back together or leave it as is till its done?

Thank you

AS the post after yours said, either works. I left mine as it was, effectively it's just an elaborate air lock anyway.

:tank:
 
Hey Guys! Thanks for the tips!
I just ran into my airlock foaming out.
I searched for the answer and found this thread.
After reading... I yanked the tubing off my wort chiller and my girlfriend jammed it on to the out hole of my sanitized airlock. The tube is now venting into my 2000 mL Erlenmyer flask. There is a cup or so of vodka in the flask.
The recipe is for a Trippel. I added one extra pound of sugar. I made a starter 24 hours in advance using 1/2 cup of DME and 1000 mL water.
Our starting gravity was 1.084
This morning at 8 hours in the primary the airlock was very active.
By the 14th hour it was foaming out!

brewpic1.jpg
 
Have just recently employed the airlock/blowoff tube approach and it's working great so far, only took me two exploded primaries to get motivated! Cutting off the plastic filterish thing at the end seems wise and I've made that modification.

Sharing some pictures -- First explosion, at home, the lid blew clear off at some point on a hef in the hot of DC summer (although it doesn't matter where you are anymore, I guess).

The second time was unfortunately at work -- we're start-upy and I had one other homebrewer to help with the convincing -- and you forget how foul and unsusual a fully-fermenting batch of beer is to a person that has no idea you can even make beer, who came to me looking like they just walked out of a crime scene. This time the lid just half opened, although the mess was worse....we've since found a newer, cooler place to ferment.

Both times I simply wiped it up with paper towels dipped in star san, cleaned and star san'd the lids, and both times the beer turned out great.

IMG_20120420_115811.jpg


IMAG0218.jpg
 
I got lucky and read about blow off tubes before I had a beer shower in the closet. I chose not to use part of an airlock and just dipped the end of some siphon hose in starsan to make it slick and stuffed it through the grommit in the lid of my bucket.
Hefe002.jpg

This is my first extract Hefe, glad I did not us an airlock lol
 
I got lucky and read about blow off tubes before I had a beer shower in the closet. I chose not to use part of an airlock and just dipped the end of some siphon hose in starsan to make it slick and stuffed it through the grommit in the lid of my bucket.
Hefe002.jpg

This is my first extract Hefe, glad I did not us an airlock lol

Dover, that's how I do it and no problems so far.
 
geer537 said:
I never thought of puting a tube on an air lock before either- I just took the bung I use for my carboy down to Home Depot with me and found some cheap clear tubling.

Then I put one side in a Homer Bucket with water and a little bit of Iodine.

I just stick tubing into the bung or the top of the lid on a bucket. Skip the air lock.
 
I use star san in my jug. Just keep in mind that Star San foams, so if you have a vigorous fermentation going, you will get a lot of foam in the jug and that can also overflow so keep an eye on it.
 
Its just standard 3/8" ID tubing my LHBS keeps it in stock for use with the racking cane. Its a tight squeeze but it will fit.
 
So had my first issue with this in 3.5 years, good run I guess. After 14 hours my airlock was full of gunk and had some wort (assume originally was foam) standing on the top of my fermenter pail top. I cleaned up the air lock as didn't have time to do anything else before work. I got home and the air lock was fine but noticed the outside of my pail was full of krausen (gunk) and the top wasn't completely sealed --- although couldn't see wort. I cleaned up the sides, put pail back on, and now have a blow off tube going. THanks to this thread for the idea.

My questions...

1. With the gunk that got outside of my pail, will that hurt my yeast at work? Or is it purely krausen? The stuff outside my pail was like peanut butter.
2. Since my pail top wasn't completely sealed for the day (no more than 10 hours), do I need to fear infection? I'm guessing not since everything was blowing out.

And it was my fault, this is a high gravity beer so created (2) yeast starters and ended up with a bigger batch size than expected --- so it was the perfect storm for a blow out.
 
Good to hear! It does look like the thing is fermenting just fine with the blowoff tube so assume we're good as you mentioned. Thanks for the feedback.
 
I have to post and say that this thread totally saved my ass with my most recent batch. I am still new to home brewing (this is my third batch) and I'm brewing a 60 minute clone. I noticed foam in my airlock and quickly Googled what to do and found this thread. I really appreciate the insight. Thanks!
 
Great thread. 2 years of HBing and just had my first foamed airlock on a double ipa. Checked this forum for the problem and as usual, you guys were a great help. I caught mine really early so no blown off lid. I was able to remove the 3 pc airlock top off, SLOWLY, to release most pressure. I removed the float and jambed my now sanitized siphoning tube over the airlock nipple, put other end into a jug of Sal San mix. Viola! Thanx Again Gang!
 
An extremely simple solution to what can become a huge mess. I ferment smaller batches in 4l wine jugs which leave little room for error. Back when I lived in Texas I had an apartment early in my homebrewing that would get warm in the late afternoon no matter how low the AC was set. I came home once to a huge explosion up the side of a wall on to the ceiling where the krausen completely clogged the neck of the jug and into the opening of the airlock. I was fortunate the stopper popped out than the glass exploding but still took a couple hours to get all that dried krausen out of white paint.
 
Quickly pull it out and clean and re sanitize it, then rig up an airlock blowoff tube...take your bottling wand, put a small slit in it...Heat it for a few minutes in hot water to soften, then do this.

Airlockbo2.jpg


Ailockbo1.jpg


then you'll be fine.
Quickly pull it out and clean and re sanitize it, then rig up an airlock blowoff tube...take your bottling wand, put a small slit in it...Heat it for a few minutes in hot water to soften, then do this.

Airlockbo2.jpg


Ailockbo1.jpg


then you'll be fine.
How long do you leave it like this?
 
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