Airlock bubbling over

I just checked on my brew which is about 48 hours into fermentation in a 6.5 gallon plastic fermentor. The airlock has filled with sediment and is slightly bubbling over. Right now, the airlock looks to be filled with more wort than water. I guess I could somehow rig a blow off tube. My question is, have I potentially messed up my beer in some way? I sanitized my airlock very well before using it. Also, can I just leave it if it doesn't get any worse?

Happens to all of us at one time or another, it means you have a very very active fermentation...

First off, pull the airlock off anc clean and re-sanitize it...stick it back in, then grab a hose (I found the the one from my bottling wand worked when I needed it) and rig up a blowoff tube..





Everything including your beer will be fine!!! Between that and dropping the rubber grommet into the bucket, means you know you have truly entered the brotherhood of the homebrewer.

Revvy said:

Between that and dropping the rubber grommet into the bucket, means you know you have truly entered the brotherhood of the homebrewer.

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Funny you say that. I finished my first batch yesterday and everything went pretty smoothly (except my thermometer didn't really work below 100 degrees, so making sure my wort was cool enough was a bit of an adventure...). The one "big" SNAFU though was when I was trying to get my airlock good and tight I pushed a little hard and now my grommet is swimming in my beer. No big deal...just funny that is the only thing that really went wrong for me. That happened around 6pm last night and when I woke up this morning she was bubbling away. It's gonna be a long few weeks

That damned grommet fell into my bucket in my first brew! I siphoned the wort to my 5 gallon carboy and used that as my primary.

Damn! Thats a damn redneck T-shirt on your primary Rev. (Im having 80s commercials flashbacks of Era and no ring around the collar) LOL


Looks like you got the crash course in brewing for noobs! Welcome aboard! It has happened to all of us at least once.
-Me

JoeMama said:

Damn! Thats a damn redneck T-shirt on your primary Rev. (Im having 80s commercials flashbacks of Era and no ring around the collar) LOL


Looks like you got the crash course in brewing for noobs! Welcome aboard! It has happened to all of us at least once.
-Me

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LOL...That was from the freakin blowoff before I got the tube on...it just soaked it in...

I was a few threads previous to this and recieved the same kind of quick response. You guys are good, there is some real good knowledge in the group using this site. I am going to have to pay for the site, it's too valuable and I am addicted anyway.

Revvy,

You're everywhere!!!!

Hey guys,

I seem to be experiencing a similar problem here. The airlock is bubbling rapidly, from what I've read due to a very active fermentation. Im about to rig up a blowoff tube, but I have one question: Will removing the airlock not leave the brew liable to airborne infections?

Thanks in advance,
Semp

While there's so much gas coming out of it, there's little to no chance of anything getting in there so you have plenty time to rig a blowoff tube without an airlock on there.

Thats great news! I'll rig one up right now then.

You guys are awesome!

There is alot of foam coming thru my airlock, so i made one of blow-over w/ an old growler (like in the pic.) but there is a hell of alot of foam coming over into it.


Should i be concerned?

if so,

What should i do?

(i have pics but, i don't think i can post them)

You're fine. If your growler starts to bubble over, replace it with a different container.

thanks for your help

i found this thread on a search because i saw this same thing happening this morning when i woke up. rigged a blowoff and its all good...

DRdUSTYmUSTARD said:

i found this thread on a search because i saw this same thing happening this morning when i woke up. rigged a blowoff and its all good...

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Gods love the search function!

My airlock also seems to have wort bubbling into it. Is it absolutely necessary to remove the airlock and clean it, or is it alright to leave it alone and let the fermenting continue?

As long as you keep checking and cleaning the airlock, you can do get away with it. If you sleep and it get's clogged, it WILL BLOW off and a mess will happen. Is all

O.O im suprised i didn't think about that! thanks for the idea. I had a ? ale i was making that went boom. this could have saved it. you just saved me lots of $. Danke!

Revvy said:

Between that and dropping the rubber grommet into the bucket, means you know you have truly entered the brotherhood of the homebrewer.

Click to expand...

Did both on my first batch (which is happily fermenting away as I type). Who do I talk to about learning the secret handshake?

Reviving an old thread here, but it's funny: I have a pretty explosive IPA going right now. The airlock kept clogging so I decided to fit a siphon hose as a blow-off in the lid of the ale pail. Well, of course, with the grommet it wouldn't fit. So I took the grommet out and slid the hose in. Well, then it seemed like there wasn't a very good seal, so I searched the boards and found this thread. Eureka! Put the hose on the airlock cylinder! Well, okay, better put the grommet back in...

You can guess where this goes. Anyway, I have another ale pail in use right now, but I might rack that batch to secondary just so I can use that lid and grommet. Well, after going to work and school, that is. Sigh...

Tonight I look forward to RDWHAHBing, if that's a verb, once I get this whole situation resolved.

newbie here..

• what's with the t-shirts on the fermenting buckets?

• the blow-off tube running into a jug with water basically serves the original airlock purpose as well, right? The water in the jug stops anything from going IN, and the tube allows for gasses and overflow to escape, right?

jimlin said:

newbie here..

• what's with the t-shirts on the fermenting buckets?

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Because if you have your beer in a swamp cooler to control fermentation temps, a t-shirt acts as a wick to draw up the water which evaporates and helps keep the fermenter cool.



If it's over a carboy it can also be used to block out the light...though I think this guy has a better idea.

• the blow-off tube running into a jug with water basically serves the original airlock purpose as well, right? The water in the jug stops anything from going IN, and the tube allows for gasses and overflow to escape, right?

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Yes....

Though sometimes blowoffs need a blowoff or something.

I usually sanitize a piece of foil and put it on there while I clean the airlock.

When in the fermentation is there the biggest need for the blowoff tube? Just brewed my first 5 gal batch this Sat. By Sunday morning the airlock was percolating nicely. I set up a blowoff tube (attached to the airlock like others in this thread) running into a growler with water and sanitizer. This morning it was burpin' every 2-3 seconds. Should I just wait until the burpin' slows before removing the blowoff tube and just using the std airlock? My brew is an amber with an OG of around 1.045, so not a big beer or anything.

My standard operating procedure is to airlock until bubbling begins then switch to a blow off for 24-36 hours then switch back to airlock. The crazy activity has always been down within 24-36 hours and I've had to clean too many soiled airlocks and floors to ever not use a blow off at the starting line. I place my blow off tube against the wall of a collection bucket and rotate the bucket occasionally. In this way I can tell if there have been any recent blow offs because the run is visible on the bucket wall.

My blow off tube is nothing more than the angled rigid tubing for a siphon with the angled end put through the grommet. Perfect reuse when I upgraded to an auto-siphon leaving the old siphon derelict.

And this is what is so great about the site. 2 year old post, still solving problems. I've never had to rig a blowoff to an ale pale, guess my fermentation has never been that crazy, but this morning I woke up to a nice floor and counter full of Tripel...

Needless to say, the tube is in place now and I get to do a fair amount of mopping today for SWMBO...

what size tubing do you use as blowoff to go over the airlock?

Hate to resurrect threads but I have a relevant question.

What size tubing fits into the rubber piece on the pail? (I have 3/8" will that be too big/small?)

I found I wasn't able to fit it over the tube on the three piece airlock.

I wish I had read this post earlier today!. I decided to use another fermenter that someone had given me for an English style stout. The fermenter is only 25 litres and this stout was 23 litres. The recipe for the stout was a 1.7kg tin of Irish stout and a 1.5kg tin of dark malt and had advised to use two sachets of yeast!
Started it at 4pm yesterday and at 7 am this morning it was bubbling over, the airlock full of stout and stuff everywhere so it had blown a fair bit out through the night. It was also leaking through the screw top lid. I thought I had two choices - to bottle my other brew which I confirmed had finished fermenting from a 30 litre fermenter and use that ferementer to pour the stout into - or pour off 5 or 6 litres out of the stout and see if that stopped it from overflowing. I chose to bottle my other brew (after a SG test to confirm it had actually finished). I poured the stout into the sterilised 30 litre container and I am currently waiting for it to start bubbling again. I guess my question are, if this doesn't start bubbling soon (how soon) have i wrecked my beer? Can I pitch some more yeast and hope for the best?

This thread has been gold for us new folks, so I'm going to resurrect it.

We had a really active fermentation bubbling through the airlock, so we rigged up the blowoff. All seems to be well. I think we'll switch back to the airlock pretty soon.

My question, though, is if you have such active yeast during primary fermentation, will they produce issues during bottle conditioning? I'm imagining if the rate of off gassing is the same, we'll have bottles poppin' like new years eve. Perhaps the yeast don't get as excited about the priming sugar? Any experienced folks have ideas?

Thanks for the golden nuggets of knowledge!

vitale232 said:

This thread has been gold for us new folks, so I'm going to resurrect it.

We had a really active fermentation bubbling through the airlock, so we rigged up the blowoff. All seems to be well. I think we'll switch back to the airlock pretty soon.

My question, though, is if you have such active yeast during primary fermentation, will they produce issues during bottle conditioning? I'm imagining if the rate of off gassing is the same, we'll have bottles poppin' like new years eve. Perhaps the yeast don't get as excited about the priming sugar? Any experienced folks have ideas?

Thanks for the golden nuggets of knowledge!

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Nope. There's BILLIONS of yeast cells in there. It's not going to matter. No need to start worrying about stuff like that.

This saves me asking the same question as mine is so active lol

Revvy said:

Happens to all of us at one time or another, it means you have a very very active fermentation...

First off, pull the airlock off anc clean and re-sanitize it...stick it back in, then grab a hose (I found the the one from my bottling wand worked when I needed it) and rig up a blowoff tube..

Everything including your beer will be fine!!! Between that and dropping the rubber grommet into the bucket, means you know you have truly entered the brotherhood of the homebrewer.

Click to expand...

I know this is an old thread, but I had my first airlock bubble over this afternoon, a little more than 24 hours into fermentation (it was doing fine a few hours ago!!). A quick google search led me straight here and crisis averted. The only spare hose I had that would fit is a little dirty so I will change the blowoff tube setup out for a traditional airlock once she slows down a little to prevent skunking the brew. Thanks guys!!