My primary got me an explosion for my birthday

So, I decided that my 2nd recipe should be the vanilla caramel cream ale that's so infamous around here and got it brewed up and into the primary. I should have known something was up when I saw the first bubbles 7 hours after I pitched the Wyeast German Ale yest. I left for class the next morning and came back at 2:30pm or so, and the top of the bucket was domed out and had spewed krausen all over the place. GRRRRRR!!!

I grabbed the clear tubing and started to gently take out the airlock. It didn't like that at all and spewed beer straight into my face. I put the tubing in and lowered the other end into some water with vodka. I was scared as $#!7 when I saw the top immediately dome out again. I tried all kinds of things, but the top was still doming out even though the tube wasn't blocked. Luckily after an hour of fighting, I saw steady bubbles in the water, and the lid wasn't swelling any more despite being pretty bulging.

Whatever. I had to leave it alone over the entire weekend, and I was sure I was going to come home to walls that were still drunk from the 5 gallons of beer that they surely would have drank...nope! All good! I replaced the blow-off with the airlock, and it is still going mighty fast.

What the heck about this recipe makes it go nuts like that? Also, what is the best way to determine if I infected it?

Honestly I'm not sure why this happens time to time. My understanding is that the yeast was very healthy and you provided what they need to propagate well. As for the infection time will tell. This has happened to me about 4 or 5 times and I haven't had one infection due to the blow off yet so you should be ok. I would give it a taste test just before your bottle or keg and that should let ya know how it turns out.

Best of luck
Grimmy

Sorry Rocketman, I had to laugh a little bit. Once you have tasted the first bottle out of this batch, think about it's (the beer) slight misfortune during fermentation and you will appreciate it that much more.

What was your OG?

I will always rig a blowoff tube for any beer with an OG of 1.07+. Some HBT folks have mentioned using FermCap which can be found here http://www.williamsbrewing.com/FERMCAP_FOAM_CONTROL_P1106.cfm

MULE said:

Sorry Rocketman, I had to laugh a little bit. Once you have tasted the first bottle out of this batch, think about it's (the beer) slight misfortune during fermentation and you will appreciate it that much more.

What was your OG?

I will always rig a blowoff tube for any beer with an OG of 1.07+. Some HBT folks have mentioned using FermCap which can be found here http://www.williamsbrewing.com/FERMCAP_FOAM_CONTROL_P1106.cfm

Click to expand...

Glad you laughed! It was scary at the time, but it's pretty funny now. The measured OG was 1.053 and I was using Wyeast German Ale.

Ingredients:
1 lb steeped Crystal 60L
3 lbs Muntons Extra Light DME
3 lbs Muntons Wheat DME
1.5 oz Vanilla Extract
...and of course some hops.

Also, the bubbles coming out smell sort of sulfur-y, but the description for the yeast only notes that sulfur notes should come through at lower fermentation temps of 55-60 while mine is at 69. I hope this is not a bad sign.