Fermenter exploded

So last night I brewed a porter that had a SG of 1.072 @ 73 F. When I woke up this morning it was fermenting happily a few bubbles a second. I come home to find my central air dead in the water and the temp of the house at 80 F. I smell the sweet smell of beer, I look under the table and BLAMO!!!! My plastic fermenters lid is blown off!!! Like halfway but still barely attached and wort all over and even on the underside of the table! I must have shot thru the air lock and it was so sticky it eventually clogged and blew the top.

The first thing I did was grab some sanitizer and wiped down the bucket lip and lid and secured it. Within 10 seconds the bubbler was going again at full speed! So I turned on my window AC units and moved the fermenter to try and cool it down. The temp obviously played a role in its furious fermenting right?

I'm wonder if my beer has been compromised? There was and still is a huge, thick layer of kruesen on the top so I am guessing nothing got to the actual wort.

I dunno what I should do, the lid is bulging, I had to take the airlock off and clean it out (cuz the lid popped again), put vodka in it and as I am sitting here it is turning into Mount Vesuvius again. If I can get the temps down this should help correct?

Is this what I should expect when brewing high gravity beers? (Is this even considered a HG beer?) I don't know how to figure out in advanced what my gravity would be so I can't decide whether to use a glass carboy with blow off bucket or plastic pale.

I just hope my beer is going to be ok, possible contamination and who knows how many hours of 80 degree fermenting are against me.

Going to need evidence
Post pics!

wacko said:

Going to need evidence
Post pics!

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Yeah. Fraps or it didn't happen

oh, blow off tube btw

you might have some fusel alchohols from it but next time you should fix a blow off tube. either a tube thick enough to plug the entire hole in the lid or a tube coming off your airlock with no water in the air lock to a bigger container with some water to cover the end of the tube. so when lots of krausen builds it will just blo over to the other container without the theatrics. but that should would have been cool to see.

But seriously, RDWHAHB.

Fit it with a blowoff tube. You can get tubing that fits the grommet hole snugly without the grommet in it. No need to switch to carboy yet.

Regardless if it fermented a bit hot for a few hours, it didn't kill your yeast and it's still going to produce beer. Might have a slightly off flavor, but probably not so much that you'd noticed. And considering that there was likely a positive outflow of "stuff" while the lid was loose, I won't worry too much about infection.

Just wait it out.

I don't bother with blowoff tubes, but I do 12l batches in 6.5 gallon buckets, so I always have plenty of headroom.

Here ya go, lol this is basically its current situation. I had to clean it up ASAP before the wife got home and saw the chaos so I didn't get initial pics but its still working pretty hard.

Nice!

Blow off tube.... should fix your issues here but could lead to some loss.

I would be more woried about the excessive temp. But hey, I have had my battles with fusel's. In that heavy a beer it will be fine I think. Nice pic's btw

High temps = let it sit an extra week than planned to assure the yeast have cleaned all they could and it will give it a little time to bulk condition.
Blown top = blow off tube. I never go straight to an airlock anymore, better safe than BEERSPLOSION! Once the ferm dies down put an airlock on.

Always install a little insurance during primary fermentation, use a blow off into a container of water. This simple measure allows you to RDWHAHB. Look at any brewery near you and you will see hoses draped in to 5 gallon buckets making bubbles..... Every fermentation I have gets a blow off regardless of gravity. Air locks are great if you secondary. Not being mean, just 'say'ns'

*high fives Kryznics*

I just want to update and say this beer has fermented in the primary for 2 weeks to the day (today) and I tasted it late last night with the sample I pulled for a temp/gravity reading. I think my SG was 1.072 and my final was 1.024 which I believe is around 6.5 or 7% ABV, I forget the actual figures.

But more importantly, I drank the half a pint glass right down and was extremely happy with it! Even without carbonation this beer tastes awesome and I can't wait to add the coffee when I bottle it this week.

So just goes to show ya can't get yourself all worked up! RDWHAHB are words to live by for sure!

Oh and also, this brew fermented for a solid week! I mean it bubbled right up until a week from the day I pitched. So I am gonna let it sit until the weekend and bottle it.

mquigley said:

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I think his description was good enough. He just wants some other opinions. Just because you want some blown lid homebrew porn...

My porter I made this summer was particularly explosive. A blow off tube and cooler temps will definitely help. I'm guessing you got the AC issues fixed so the temp shouldn't be too much of an issue in the future. You can rig a blow off tube with those three piece airlocks very easily. Put the airlock in place like normal, but without the lid or the cone. You can easily fit 1/2" tubing to the opening and run it into a bowl, glass, or jar of sanitizer or vodka. That should take care of your problem in the future.

Had the same thing happen with a graff recipe. Came back to my apartment with friends and someone mentioned it smelled of stale beer. The plastic lid had literally blown off of my primary fermenter and the air lock was shattered into several pieces. No pictures as the girlfriend immediately freaked and scrubbed.

I was wondering though, if the pressure builds to such an extent and I were to have a nice glass carboy, would I have had glass frags everywhere?

This had never happened before, but the blow off top is definitely the way to play for things that will be violently fermenting, or maybe just for everything now that I have learned a lesson.

BostonRogue said:

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I was wondering though, if the pressure builds to such an extent and I were to have a nice glass carboy, would I have had glass frags everywhere?
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A thick walled Carboy with a rubber stopper will blow the stopper out. A thin glass gallon wine jug with the metal cap lightly screwed on can stick glass in sheetrock 20ft away. And give you a pretty poke a doted paint job on the walls.

(I switched to a plastic baggy over the top after that.)