Happy Birthday surprise

Alright, so it's my birthday and I expect people to call me up or write me and remind me of how old I am... However, what I did not expect is my primary fermenter to hold a party in my honor. About midnight last night I noticed a hissing noise from somewhere and wrote it off as something outside. It happened several times over the next hour though and I went investigating. Lo and behold the yeast krausen had risen up into the airlock and was starting to clog it, hence the occasional hissing noise as the krausen settled enough to allow the gas to escape with enough pressure. Thousands upon thousands of little yeast voices ran through my head singing Happy Birthday... <sigh>

So, the good thing is that I rigged some rubber bands around the top cover of the airlock after adjusting it so more gas could escape without blowing the stopper out and it has held through the night. It is still expelling gas even now but I also noticed that some of the krausen is also seeping past the seal on the cover of the primary itself due to excessive krausen and pressure. Now I know that as long as the pressure keeps then oxygen won't be introduced into the primary. I'm just wondering about after the fact...

Anyone have similar problems without any explosion or major break of the seal and still have good beer afterwards?

I have literally used a mop on the ceiling before, and the beer came out fine.

The only time I had anything blow was with a wheat beer. I wasn't home, and my wife calls me. She thought I was going to be annoyed, but I had read that wheat beers are prone to blowing so I wasn't surprised. I told her to put a piece of foil over it, and she already had. There are still stains on the ceiling.

The beer itself turned out fine. You really have to screw up sanitation to ruin the beer. If you followed good sanitation in the first place things like this don't matter as much. Once the yeast has done its thing the nasties stay away.

Sounds awesome...thanks for the reassurances. I hope I won't have to use a mop or anything though.

I had a wheat beer launch an airlock before as well, beer turned out great. I also had to use a mop on the ceiling and shelves above the fermenter.

RDWHAHB