Overactive Yeast

How does it smell/taste?

My German hefeweizen with WL 300 does that every time. Look up blow-off tube in the Wiki and follow the directions for a makeshift long airlock with a racking hose. That is a sign of GOOD fermentation.....not bad. Wheat beers with hefe yeasts should be very explosive when fermenting. I would be more worried about your batches that didn't do that. It will be ready for a regular airlock in another day to two.

Wheats can have extreme head retention & a krausen is just a big head. As long as the stuff is flowing out, no worries.

Smells like beer, tastes like beer (what has blown out of the top onto the lid that is). I've always had extremely active fermentation for a few days after the first 24 hours but never this "active" and the foam really concerned me. So this was new ground but it appears to have calmed down in the foam department and is keeping the quiet at bay with all the happy bubbles.

Thanks -- Rae

It sounds to me like you had a very healthy vile of yeast and the conditions were right for it to take off. This is actually what you want to happen on every batch.
Let us know how it turns out.

By the way, welcome to HBT!

Rae,
I'm having the exact same problem as you are.
I am brewing a Pilsner & started my yeast 18 hours before I brewed.
If you found a solution I would be thrilled to hear it. I'm afraid I'll be up all night watching this so it doesn't take over my kitchen.
Con

LadyRae and Con,

Both of you need a "blow-off-tube" to stick in the top of your fermentor. And then you stick the other in a bucket with water. That way you protect your beer and you keep from making a mess. (the clean up process is the only thing I dont like about brewing)

I use a glass fermentor that easy takes the tube. If you use plastic not sure what you need to do. If you dont use glass now is a good to to start!!

Thanks Orangecat,
I'll do a blow off tube for my next batch. I only use the bucket for primary fermentation for 5-7 days then transfer to glass carboy. This batch nearly blew the lid off but has calmed down now & I think I'm safe.
Thanks for the tip.
Con

david_42 said:

Wheats can have extreme head retention & a krausen is just a big head. As long as the stuff is flowing out, no worries.

Click to expand...

My krausen IS flowing out (because I'm a noob and used a 5 gallon carboy for a 5 gallon batch on primary fermentation) and I'm wondering... How bad is that? Because I've been told that you want the krausen to ''reciruculate'' through the fermentation cycle instead of basically having it dump out. Is the batch ruined?

Other details... It's a kit brew (definitly not my first), and just 5 hours after I pitched the yeast to the wort, I went to my room to find my airlock overflowing with nearly a straight stream of co2 being released.

Thanks in advance guys

PS. It's a dunkelweizen.

I've never heard of anything bad about krausen not "recirculating", but I know that it's better to have it run out than clog up and explode out of the top all over your ceiling. Krausen is really just beer, so don't worry about it. In the future, use a bigger fermentation vessel (as you've already learned) and use a blowoff tube for beers that might have a vigorous fermentation (like wheats or big beers).

And start new threads if you really can't find the info, rather than dredging up 2-year-old+ threads that are marginally relevant to your question.

Thanks for the quick reply!

Yeah, sorry about bringing it back from the dead... I moderate a Volkswagen forum and for some reason, the community encourage such things so it's kind of habbit, but good to know for future reference.

As for the question of topic, glad to hear that it wont hurt anything. I can't say for sure where I heard that the krausen needs to recirculate, but I'm sure you know more than them since it was likely a video response on youtube haha.

Thanks again!

No worries. It is sometimes relevant to bring old threads back from the dead.

Make sure that after your beer quits overflowing you reinstall your airlock and bung or whatever apparatus you are using to release the excess CO2.

I had an amber ale do this same thing a month ago. Eventually I got a stuck ferment and thought about tossing the whole thing. I got busy though and another two weeks and all is tasting very good now. If you don't mind waiting and putting in the effort to make it to the drinking phase, it could be the best beer yet.

Oh well thats no problem for me.. My fermentation is going very well still. I have two batches going, both of which needed a blow off tube application (the other is a blond ale). But even after it was calm enough to go to a regular air lock, fermentation was/is going great. My only concern is the amount of time it's going to take to finish, because the dunkelweizen is supposed to be done thursday (ready for bottling) but it's bubbling away hah. I suppose I'm just impatient...

The search button is my friend. This is my 5th batch and I came home to my wife flipping out. "Your god d**n beer is oozing every and the while house stinks" figured it was good and so now I'm building a blow off valve.