Brew-mergency

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joetito1

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I was making the 'Cherries in the Snow' recipe by Charlie Papazian in the 'Complete Joy of Homebrewing' book. It was my first time brewing with fruit, and I didn't realize how crazy the primary fermentation would be. Guess you only learn this mistake once :)

1.jpg


After cleanup:

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Is that the fermenter on the bottom with the blowoff on the top? If so, you might wanna swap positions. When fermentation ends it might(will) suck back.
 
You caught it before it got too bad actually.... you're good! I had a Pumking clone fermenting with a simple airlock. Got home from work to find the top bulging and the airlock full of krausen. I was literally probably 5 minutes from it blowing it's top before I set up my blow off tube.
 
you are going to have a fermentor full of sanitizer when it sucks back if you don't swap those buckets around.
 
Is that the fermenter on the bottom with the blowoff on the top? If so, you might wanna swap positions. When fermentation ends it might(will) suck back.

Yes

you are going to have a fermentor full of sanitizer when it sucks back if you don't swap those buckets around.

I kept it like that for a week and didn't have any problems, nothing was sucked back in the fermentor.
 
But wouldn't there need to be some sort of counter pressure for the liquid to drain back into the fermentor? I guess I don't understand how that would be possible...
 
But wouldn't there need to be some sort of counter pressure for the liquid to drain back into the fermentor? I guess I don't understand how that would be possible...

Why would you risk it? What benefit is there to having the fermenter and blow off reservoir reversed like that? At least have them on equal ground.
 
joetito1 said:
But wouldn't there need to be some sort of counter pressure for the liquid to drain back into the fermentor? I guess I don't understand how that would be possible...

During fermentation the yeast create heat. That raises the fermentation vessel above ambient temperature. When it cools off those couple degrees it will creat a vacuum.
 
Why would you risk it? What benefit is there to having the fermenter and blow off reservoir reversed like that? At least have them on equal ground.

I honestly didn't know there was a risk of that happening. It was my first time dealing with this kind of situation and I acted pretty quickly once it exploded all over my floor. I wouldn't ever set it up like that again knowing that there's that possibility.

I was asking that because I was more curious HOW it would happen, not that I thought what I did was the right choice.
 
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