Help! Krausen foaming out of carboy!

krausen is foaming out of the top of my carboy! what should I do to stop/fix this?!

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 have truly entered the brotherhood of the homebrewer.

Damn you Revvy and your fast typing ways!!!

ok thanks. unfortunatly i wont be at home to do it for another 3.5 hours. im at work right now and my wife txted me to tell me about it. will it be ok until then?

spriggan486 said:

ok thanks. unfortunatly i wont be at home to do it for another 3.5 hours. im at work right now and my wife txted me to tell me about it. will it be ok until then?

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It's gonna be messy, but it will be okay.....can't you explain to her what to do?

You can tell her to log in to this sight and direct her to this thread and she can see for herself what to do. It'll be easier than trying to explain it.

no, i dont have a tube at my house right now. I actually just bought one today and its in my car.

so is it good or bad to have a very active fermentation

It's good and bad. Having a blowoff proves that you have a very active yeast and it should ferment out properly, however it can also indicate too high of a fermentation temperature or not enough space in the fermenter for the krausen. Also, a lot of beer can be expelled in a blowoff. The bigger the blowoff, the less beer you'll have at the end. A blowoff can also force hop particles into the opening of your airlock that might plug it causing excessive pressure to build up in the fermenter this can literally blow the lid off your fermenter and make one hell of a mess. I've actually heard of peoples carboys exploding but I've never seen it myself.

Maybe you can have her slip a cookie sheet under the carboy until you get home to contain the mess..

lol i asked her to clean some of it up already. she replied by saying its gross and shes not touching it.

spriggan486 said:

lol i asked her to clean some of it up already. she replied by saying its gross and shes not touching it.

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Sounds like what my SWMBO would say.

Well you wouldn't happen to live either in or near Port Huron Michigan or Hernman, Maine would you? I dunno about Eddie, but I'd go over to your house and clean it and rig one for you....

If not, you'll just have to sweat it out for a couple more hours. It's probably not too bad or she'd be yelling at you that you are painting her ceiling...

Oh I would tell SWMBO if she doesn't clean it, then "NO BEER FOR YOU!"

spriggan486 said:

lol i asked her to clean some of it up already. she replied by saying its gross and shes not touching it.

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O.k., we're still talking about the beer here, right? :fro:

I'll bring some flowers and a nice bottle of port if you want.

nahh I live in atl, ga.
lol luckily she is pregnant so i wont have to share it with her anyway

Oh great, she's preggers? hopefully the "smell of fermentation" won't make her ill, a couple people have posted horror stories about that...

i dont think it will. shes well past the morning sickness stage. back when she couldnt even bear to be around me cuz i had some horrific scent that only she could smell. lol

spriggan486 said:

lol i asked her to clean some of it up already. she replied by saying its gross and shes not touching it.

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hahaha...typical SWMBO statement

Sounds like you got your SWMBO trained almost like mine is. While I was away for thanksgiving she'd give me updates on airlock activity and temp whenever I called....

lol i wouldnt say she is trained just yet. This is my first brew attempt so I haven't gotten the that point yet. She just sent me a txt about it that said "your beer thing is foaming out of the top!"

Lol, my first brew too but I got the training down quick (first call to her while I was out of town I asked about the beer, she learns quickly)

ok, so i got home about a half hour ago, I was able to get the blow off tube set up. how long can I expect the blow off to last? and should I keep watch over it until its done or just let it go?

Well I wouldn't be surprised if it's already wound down by now...

You don't have to watch over it, your beer won't break or anything...a lot of people use blowoff's all the time just in case. I've only had one blowoff and that was from pitching a new beer on a used yeastcake.

Well, it wound down around 1 AM or so and i went back to a normal airlock setup. now there's just a bunch of brown crap stuck to the top of my carboy, prolly gonna be a nightmare to clean.

Thanks a lot for all the help and advice. I really appreciate it.

spriggan486 said:

Well, it wound down around 1 AM or so and i went back to a normal airlock setup. now there's just a bunch of brown crap stuck to the top of my carboy, prolly gonna be a nightmare to clean.

Thanks a lot for all the help and advice. I really appreciate it.

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Oxyclean is the magic all around brewery cleanser for most of us...I've tossed all brushes.

It's also great for removing labels from bottles.

spriggan486 said:

i dont think it will. shes well past the morning sickness stage. back when she couldnt even bear to be around me cuz i had some horrific scent that only she could smell. lol

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Tell her she's lucky, my SWMBO's morning sickenss "phase" lasted 9 months. I was all looking forward to the 2nd trimester sexcapades I'd heard about, All I got was more vomit.

At First I never used a blow off tube. Then I had a scare or two like yours and I start out with a blow off tube on every one. I leave it a few days until the fermentation slows down.

Now I'm just scared after the "explosive" stories I've heard about and the need to repaint.

I think the one that started it all was a little too full and that is why it was foaming out. I didn't want to waste any precious beer and just kept filling the carboy..

Revvy said:

Oxyclean is the magic all around brewery cleanser for most of us...I've tossed all brushes.

It's also great for removing labels from bottles.

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Whoa there Hoss, please tell this newbie more about the Oxyclean and the tossing of the brushes.

EddieWess said:

Whoa there Hoss, please tell this newbie more about the Oxyclean and the tossing of the brushes.

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Ahem....It's easier if you see for yourself...


(THe mere word maxes out the search function)

Search Results for oxyclean


Around here, Billy is our god!




Why use a brush when the fizzy stuff does the scrubbing for you?

Thanks alot

I brewed a beer and a left town for thanksgiving. Didn't think I needed a blow off because I'm fermenting a little colder than usual and I had plenty of head room. Anyways, I come back and it's mostly clogged. Taking off the stopper was like popping a champagne bottle. Then it really started foaming. From now on, I'm putting a blow off tube when leaving town. Lesson learned.

Its good you caught it early, my last batch caused the lid to blow off my fermenter. It was a huge mess.

So now the batch is on day 3 of fermenting and the airlock action has slowed to about 1 bubble every 15 seconds, and there is only a very very thin layer of foam on top. Is this too soon to be seeing this low of activity? I know you all will prolly tell me not to worry. It's just hard not to since this is my first attempt and all!

spriggan486 said:

So now the batch is on day 3 of fermenting and the airlock action has slowed to about 1 bubble every 15 seconds, and there is only a very very thin layer of foam on top. Is this too soon to be seeing this low of activity? I know you all will prolly tell me not to worry. It's just hard not to since this is my first attempt and all!

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Not to worry, everything is fine...since you had such an active fermentation, it is pretty normal that it will wind down. they all do, eventually.

Just leave it alone for AT LEAST another week (me personally, I'd give it another 3 or 4), it's fine, it doesn't need you hovering over.

Get another fermentor and brew another batch...it will take your mind of this batch of beer.

Cool, thanks a lot.
I got a Mr beer kit that I ordered in the mail yesterday, which I don't really need now, because in my excitement I went and bought stuff to make a 5 gal setup. But anyway, I started a 2 gal batch of vienna lager last night so thats takin my attention off the other one a little bit.

Hey, at least yours is working! I put together a belgian wit on Sunday evening, and I still don't see any action in the blow-off. Experience tells me to wait a couple more days, but I used regular Ale yeast, and that is another couple of days before it's ready!!