Crazy, thick-ass yeast sludge on top of beer

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Cabbie

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OK, so I leave a Scotch wee-heavy ale fermenting in my garage as we go to Disneyland for a couple days. I brewed this batch on Saturday, put on a blowoff until Wednesday (the day we left), it looked like it had calmed down for the most part, so I took out the blowoff tube and stuck an airlock on the top.

Well.... come back and check on it this morning (Friday) and the airlock is completely jammed solid with caked, yeast-sludge and inside the carboy it looks like a thick layer of yeast-sludge on top of the beer.

Do I have a concern here? What should be done? Should I siphon off into secondary or?

Thanks guys
 
Clean and sanitize your airlock, then leave it alone for a few more weeks. Sounds like normal krausen/floaty yeast to me.
 
Thanks Potter. Yay the carboy was probably a little too full so the top is crowded, and its an 7% heavy so some crazy fermentation going on. Already switched out airlock for clean one. Doesnt smell bad or anything so im not worried about contamination. One more question for you: how long is ok to leave in primary? Ive heard 3 weeks max, because you dont want to leave on yeast cake?

Thanks for the quick reply!
 
A lot of people, including me, will leave beer on the primary for four to six weeks with no problems at all. The longest I've ever gone in two months with no off taste at all. In fact, they tend to be a little cleaner than beers that go into the secondary. I never secondary, unless it is a huge beer that requires months and months of bulk aging
 
Don't believe the hype, beer can stay in primary for longer than 2/3 weeks without issue.

A lot of people around here do not use secondary, leave the beer in primary for 4 or so weeks and keg/bottle from there.

Usually the only time I secondary is if I plan on dry hopping or I need to free up fermenters. That or lagering, where the beer will be sitting for months rather than weeks.
 

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