Krausen plugged airlock

I brewed a Porter yesterday that came out to 1.070 OG and pitched with Nottingham yeast from a starter. Less than 10 hours later there is 4" of krausen and a plugged airlock. This is a 5 gallon batch in an 8 gallon primary, so that's really a lot of krausen. I believe I should get some 1" tubing for a blowoff tube, but I'm curious as to what exactly caused this much krausen and if there are any steps I can take to minimize this next time. The temperature has been a constant 67F.

Some fermentations are simply more active than others. There's really no one "answer" as to why it happens. Some yeasts are more active than others, sometimes higher temps cause it, sometimes a lot of fermentables, like fruits cause it.

That's why having some tubing handy and putting on a blowoff tube is a good idea.

Healthy ferment combined with good head retention. Some people use blowoff tubes. Some people put the fermenter in the sink.

I've had to take the stopper and airlock off three times now to unplug and clean. I'm worried that each time I took it off, by beer got contaminated. On the other hand, I'd imagine that there's quite a bit of alcohol in there right now, so that could kill some of the bacteria.

I have a friend who's bringing me some tubing for a blowoff. I'll have to remove the airlock again to rig that up.

I converted to the blowoff. Hopefully my beer is still good!

The beer will be fine, you have constant escaping c02 that will blow out any nasties before they can take hold. I just had 2x 6.5 and 1x 5 gal primary blow their top after racking fresh wort onto a fresh cake. My fermatation room now has a lovely smell of Oatmeal Coffee Stout, until I repaint at least.

SWMBOS comment was "Never mind the walls is the Beer OK?" gotta love that. My caps were off for a good 12 hours at least but I'm not worried.

Same thing happened to me - luckily it didn't overflow all over the floor. So the krausen in my fermentor has pretty much dissolved except for a thick cake-like layer around the insides of the glass. Does this layer ever come back in? I have a lot of spices in my beer and im afraid they may have been floated to the top and then caught up in the krausen. My beer has been fermenting for a week and is sitting on a good inch and a half layer of trub/settled yeast. When i go to rerack this in a few days should i try somehow recover the lost beer?

The layer stuck to the top edges of your fermenter will not go back into the beer. At bottleing time taste it and see if it's still spiced to your liking. If not make a spice tea (To taste), cool, and add during bottling

Good use of the Mirror Pond Pale Ale box. Now that's some good stuff.

Are you sure thats an 8 gallon bucket? It looks smaller than my 6.5 gallon one.

Deuce said:

Are you sure thats an 8 gallon bucket? It looks smaller than my 6.5 gallon one.

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Yeah, that's what the numbers on it say.

whutever said:

Good use of the Mirror Pond Pale Ale box. Now that's some good stuff.

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Yeah, it's one of my favorites. I have a batch of lemon wheat in the box now though. Waiting for that to carb up.

mrgstiffler said:

I converted to the blowoff. Hopefully my beer is still good!

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Isn't this how it always works - you get the blowoff attached and the ferm slows down and you don't even get the tube dirty. Oh well - there's always next time.

Grizzlybrew said:

Isn't this how it always works - you get the blowoff attached and the ferm slows down and you don't even get the tube dirty. Oh well - there's always next time.

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Oh it's dirty now alright. A steady stream of krausen is flowing through it.

Wow- if it's that active, how are you keeping it at 67 degrees? That's always been a problem for me. If I have it in a cool room, a vigorous fermentation will spike the temperatures pretty quickly. I use a water bath to help, but it seems like I always forget to start out that way!

YooperBrew said:

Wow- if it's that active, how are you keeping it at 67 degrees? That's always been a problem for me. If I have it in a cool room, a vigorous fermentation will spike the temperatures pretty quickly. I use a water bath to help, but it seems like I always forget to start out that way!

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It looks like you're right. I was just going off the thermometer in the room. The ambient temp is 67F but the stick on thermometer on the primary shows 76F. It never crossed my mind that fermentation would heat up the beer, but it makes sense now.

mrgstiffler said:

It looks like you're right. I was just going off the thermometer in the room. The ambient temp is 67F but the stick on thermometer on the primary shows 76F. It never crossed my mind that fermentation would heat up the beer, but it makes sense now.

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oh, I thought you had the thermometer showing 67 degrees. Yeah, it's hard to keep an explosive fermentation cool. And then, the warmer it gets, the more vigorous it gets. The more vigorous it gets, the warmer it gets. Like I said, a water bath helps. But I never seem to remember it until after the temp gets too high!

A good thing for me at this time of year is my basement is a steady 60 degrees. Even with a vigorous fermentation now, I should be all set!

tip: if you need to unplug/uncover a small opening temporarily and you are worried about nasties drifting or settling in, you use take a paper towel sprayed with ethanol (or soaked in vodka) to lay over the open hole.

kevmoron said:

tip: if you need to unplug/uncover a small opening temporarily and you are worried about nasties drifting or settling in, you use take a paper towel sprayed with ethanol (or soaked in vodka) to lay over the open hole.

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Or starsan or iodophor from your handy dany spray bottle of either mixed with distilled water.

Also, a small child, if properly sanitized and of the appropriate size, may in some cases be used as an improvised plug.

Revvy said:

Or starsan or iodophor from your handy dany spray bottle of either mixed with distilled water.

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Also, a small child, if properly sanitized and of the appropriate size, may in some cases be used as an improvised plug.

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WTF!?! A samll child?!?

EMPyre said:

WTF!?! A samll child?!?

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Yeah, you never heard of that? I do it all the time.

RyanK2 said:

Yeah, you never heard of that? I do it all the time.

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Sure, as long as it's sanitized...