crazy airlock action!

Man, I've been waiting for this!

Just brewed my 7th batch, an Imperial Wheat Stout, and have never had a lot of really active airlock activity with past batches, but this one rocks! It's spilling out all over the top of my bucket and is really bubbling.

I've spent enough time on this site to know I don't need to panic here, but am just wondering how closely I should be monitoring the airlock to make sure it doesn't plug? Every couple hours? More often?

Thanks all! (Have i mentioned i love brewing my own beer?)!

Can you switch to a blowoff tube?

If you know you're going to expect a very active fermentation... you should just put a blow off tube on it from the start. Honestly its better to just do it now... rather than waking up in the morning and having a mess! Do you already have the tubing?

Unless you plan on checking every hour on it you don't have to, but I assume you do sleep

Hook up a blow off tube pronto unless you want to paint the ceiling.

so can i just use my siphon tube? This is in a plastic bucket and the hole in the lid is very small!

your siphon tube might be too big. Do you use a 3 piece airlock? If so just take the middle part out, and attach your tube to the plastic.

i do use a 3 pc airlock....ok, so i can just attach the tube to that and drop into a bucket of sanitizer and let it bubble away?

Yep, just sanitize everything (even the hose) then attach it, and place it into something that has sanitized water (like 3-4 inches of water will do). If its bubbling like crazy, it'll start to bubble right away.... so in doing this, it won't clog at all. Well, it will be much harder for it to clog this way... if krausen does get inside of the tubing you might want to clean it out after a bit... but I'm sure it'll be fine.

ok, I'm on it!

so, in the future, do i need to get a bigger blowoff on this bucket and if so, how do i do that with the small hole in the lid?

yes, i'm still a noob!

Its cool, I consider myself a noob too

Nah you should be fine with that size, and doing it that way for a bucket. With a glass carboy you can get away with a huge hose (the size of of the neck).

I had the same problem yesterday. The first photo was yesterday when I got home from work. A high krausen and lots of activity in the air lock. Half an hour later the air lock was full of krausen and ready to start squirting out on the floor. The second photo is the blow off tube I set up. Within an hour is was bubbling so violently it was spilling out and filling the bowl the jar was sitting in. Finally, I went with a shorter hose, lowered everything to a level below the carboy, and added a 5 gallon bucket with a lid. The lid was to keep my dog out of it. I was very lucky that the fermentation didn't start to explode until I was home, and that I had everything to make a blow off tube handy. Obviously, lesson learned for me.

Thank you! appreciate the input!

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ok, so i can't figure out how to post a picture! Help!

How do I add an image to a post?

If you have uploaded an image as an attachment, you can click the arrow next to the 'Attachment Icon' and select it from the list. This will be inserted into your post and can be located where you want it displayed.

To include an image that is not uploaded as an attachment and is located on another website, you can do so by copying the full URL to the image, (not the page on which the image is located), and either pressing the 'Insert Image' icon or by typing after it, ensuring that you do not have any spaces before or after the URL of the image. You can insert pictures from your albums (?) in this way too.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/faq.php?faq=vb3_reading_posting#faq_vb3_attachments

Didn't realize i had to upgrade my account to upload pics.

ok, here is my crazy airlock pic...sorry for the poor quality, i should have used my camera instead of my phone...!

kabrew said:

here is my crazy airlock pic

Click to expand...

Yeah, you need a blow off tube.

There must be something in the air... mine is doing the same thing and I have a 1 piece airlock. It was to late when I noticed to go buy a 3 piece, so I'll have to baby sit this tonight.

well, since my siphon tube is too small to fit in my airlock, i just replaced the airlock with the siphon tube(fits as snug in the primary as the airlock) and ran it into a 2qt container of sanitizer.

It's happily bubbling away and no mess! I'm going to round up a larger blow off tube so i'm prepared for this next time.

thanks for all your help everyone!