Blow off after on day 3

Brewed a light american ale 50/50 2 row/pilsner malt 1# flaked corn and mashed at 149 for 90 min. Wanted it to finish low and be really clean. Pitched my starter that was running on the my stirplate for a little over 24 hours. 6 hours later the airlock was raised. The next morning bubbling really well. I have had some fermentation blow off after day one. Day 2 it seemed to be slowing down at bit, maybe 1 bubble per sec. Day three, blow off into airlock and all over the lid of the bucket. Needless to say I was surprised. Put a blow off tube on and hope it's alright. I certainly wasn't expecting that on Day 3. Is this common?

Well you know, from my experience, it is an uncommon occurance. However, I have had some fermenters do that very same thing before. Slow down a bit and then all of sudden whammm. I don't know for sure what causes that but....here are my suspicions. I think it's just certain strains of yeast more than anything.....nothing else.....just an excentric yeast. When all was said and done....the beer drank just fine and nothing was lost.

Also......a couple other things could be going on.......number one if your sanitation is poor is could be an infection....if it tastes good this is probably not the case, but always keep that in mind.

Also....it could just be a yeast metabolism anomoly. If temp was a little low at first and then there was a sudden spike in temp either from yeast metabolism raising the fermenter temp or just an ambient spike.....that could have pushed the krausen up all of a sudden on day 3 and bang.....blow off. Or there could have been a population of stressed yeast that regained activity all of a sudden.....I don't know what yeast you used....where you got it and the like, but.....sometimes yeast can do strange things that you have never seen them do before and its usually because you did something a little bit different that you disregarded as being irrelevant and it actually caused an unexpected response.......that's my two cents. Take it for what its worth.

I would just let things run their course and treat the batch as normal.......sample the next time your process allows and go from there.

Shaggy

Hoping it's not a sanitation problem, but I guess it could be. Used WLP 001 and I use it all the time, but never done something like this. It's in a water bath, so probably no drastic temp changes. Thanks for the input though.

I don't know what it is, but it's almost certainly not an infection. If the yeast was going at 6 hours, and chugging along at 12, there is no-way you could have a serious bacterial infection. That's one of the reasons for having a healthy start with the yeast, it keeps everything else at bay.

My Oktoberfast I brewed with WLP001 and it pretty much did the same thing. This was the first time for me having harvested the yeast from my IPA so it took a little time to get going. The fermentation started after about 24 hours and on day three, the krausen had invaded the airlock. Yeast will be yeast, so I do not sweat it unless they stop doing their job.

should be great beer. chances are it just hit a more sugary concentration in the wort. it's all good.

Had a similar thing happen w my wit and 3944. Fermented almost immediately and then blew off huge on day 3. Cleaned it up and moved on. Isn't in bottles yet but it appears fine.

Update: Day 5 still bubbling away at about a bubble every 2 sec. Hoping it finishes low and dry. Still have the blow off tube on. Thanks all.