Krausen from hell....

If anyone can give any advice on this I'd appreciate it...

I brewed up my first high gravity beer on Saturday night (Dogfish Head 90 min IPA) which took a little while to get going on fermentation. After about 36 hours I started to see regular bubbles coming through the air lock and since over half of my previous brews had a tendency to foam through my airlock I decided to put a blow off tube on the brew this morning (ran into half full a 2 quart pitcher). Well I get home from class around 7:30 and the top is bulged to the point it's obviously about to blow. I figure that the airlock's intake has gotten clogged since the pitcher already has turned amber from the run off so I switch it out with another sanitized one which bleeds off the pressure. So after 30 minutes I go back down stairs and the freakin thing is about to blow again and when I push down on the top to bleed off the pressure on the new airlock, no air will come through. I take the new airlock out and push down on the top again and I get what would account for about half a cup of foam.

So apparently this freaking krausen is possessed to the point that without some level of intervention it will blow off the top of my primary. So knowing my current plight does anyone know anything that will keep my ceiling from getting coated? Any replies within the next three hours will be GREATLY appreciated.

Sounds like you need a blowoff tube set up.

Blowoff tube - Home Brewing Wiki

If youre talking about a bucket and you have a the krausen so thick that it is plugging the hole in the top of the lid I suggest cracking the lid and letting the crud leak out that way. I had it happen with a robust porter and even the blowoff tube got clogged up.

I already have one going but it isn't quite as large. Right not I've taken one of the normal 3 piece airlocks and taken off everything but the main assembly and attached a 1/2" or 5/8" hose (can't remember which fits tight) to the main tubing. The thing is still clogging though within thirty minutes of putting a new airlock on. I assume it's that small Y shaped piece of plastic over the opening in the primary but seeing that I don't have anything that can cleanly cut that piece off I'd appreciate any other suggestions for dealing with this if there are any...

Sorry to be a pain on this one but as I said in my first post, I have about 3 more hours before I have to crash for night and I would prefer not to wake up to krausen on my ceiling. Then again maybe that is just a right of passage for the home brewer....

Cut of the X!

BeerPressure said:

If youre talking about a bucket and you have a the krausen so thick that it is plugging the hole in the top of the lid I suggest cracking the lid and letting the crud leak out that way. I had it happen with a robust porter and even the blowoff tube got clogged up.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately that was the first thing I tried...4 minutes later this is what I'm seeing so the fix doesn't exactly last.....

strider said:

Cut of the X!

Click to expand...

Just remembered I've used my tile saw to cut through PVC and tried that one...hopefully it will work...if not I am probably going to have to relegate myself to cleaning up a mess on the floor and ceiling tomorrow morning.

If u still have problems w/ clogging after that (I don't think u will) just leave the lid resting on top. Don't snap it down and put the bucket in a catch basen(sp) of some kind. Nothing is likely to get in ur beer when it is actively blowing it's top.

strider said:

If u still have problems w/ clogging after that (I don't think u will) just leave the lid resting on top. Don't snap it down and put the bucket in a catch basen(sp) of some kind. Nothing is likely to get in ur beer when it is actively blowing it's top.

Click to expand...

Thanks, it looks like even though the pressure is still having to force it's way through it is getting out so hopefully I won't have to break out the mop in the morning.

I will say though, that if anyone has any plans/pics of a blow off system for a 6.5 bucket that has a larger diameter than 1/2" I'd love to see it for future brews.

I have a 1.062 OG porter going right now. After 1 day the lid of my 6.5 gal bucket had been pushed open and leaked all over the floor. The blowoff tube was full of krausen and had overflowed the growler at the end of the tube. I had to put the growler in another bucket to catch the overflow and this went on for almost 36 hours!

SWMBO was not happy as the bucket was in the bedroom for ideal temperature, however the fermentation was giving off so much heat there was no issues with me moving it to another room for a day or two.

So did you end up mopping your ceiling this morning?

kcstrom

Thankfully no. My 2L pitcher had over flown by a bit but that I can deal with.

Thanks for the help everyone.