A "your beer is not ruined" for new brewers example

Last month I brewed a Kolsch, starting OG 1.050. Two days after pitching the yeast, KABOOM! Sounded like someone through a basball at the celing. I went in the room and gunk was everywhere and the lid was on the floor, airlock cracked, green crap all shoved inside it. I cleaned the walls, floor, baseboards and part of the ceiling (yeah, I know, I should have taken pics).

I grabbed a clean airlock and put the lid back in place. Next morning, opened the door to the room, another blowout had happened. No idea how long the lid was off.

Did the same procedure.

Now....

Just tapped the keg this weekend, kick-butt brew! Fan favorite (my free-loading "have any more of that homebrew beer" neighbors) and SWMBO two-thumbs up. And I have to rate it as a top 5 beer.


So, two morals. One, get that blowoff and get rid of the dang airlocks. Second, relax, have a home brew.

You forgot a few details:
cleaning equipment?
popcorn ceilings?
baseboards, molding, railings involved?

SmugMug said:

You forgot a few details:
cleaning equipment?
popcorn ceilings?
baseboards, molding, railings involved?

Click to expand...

I ferment in a coat closet and ended up with 20 dirty coats once.... and that was with a blowoff tube. A poorly designed one, though.

Picobrew said:

I ferment in a coat closet and ended up with 20 dirty coats once.... and that was with a blowoff tube. A poorly designed one, though.

Click to expand...

I actually ferment in my basement bathroom. It has heated floors so I can control the temp really well down to about 60 degrees. The funny thing was that the lid must of first popped open on the side facing the "royal seat", about 6 feet away. I huge portion of hoppy karusen was blasted against the toilet. Reminded me of my old college party house days.

Looked like someone blew chunks all over the biffy.

I had the lid blow off the fermentor, turned upside down and dumped the airlock water into my beer. That batch has been in the bottle 3 weeks and it tastes great.
I don't know if it made a difference but, I always put a little starsan in with the airlock water.

Brocster said:

I actually ferment in my basement bathroom. It has heated floors so I can control the temp really well down to about 60 degrees. The funny thing was that the lid must of first popped open on the side facing the "royal seat", about 6 feet away. I huge portion of hoppy karusen was blasted against the toilet. Reminded me of my old college party house days.

Looked like someone blew chunks all over the biffy.

Click to expand...

Ah....memories. Those were the days weren't they? Cheap beer, bad food and loose women. We inherited a keg when we moved into our rental house. $45 and we had cheap beer for the weekend. Unless it was a home game...then all bets were off. Nothing floats a keg as quickly as a dozen Alabama fans.