urgent, please help...

Okay, I'm brewing my dream beer, it's been fermenting for a few days, and I'm an idiot. It's in a plastic bucket with an airlock (I've never used a blow off system before but now I know why that's a good idea...).

After a few days of fermenting, I came home from work today to find the top of the lid blew clear off the bucket. It was sitting open for hours. The foamy top is beautiful, but now of course I'm worried about my brew.

What should I do? For now, I just put the lid back on with the airlock. But I don't want it to happen again. I don't have a blow off tube setup. Should I try to rig one or what?

help!
Scott

RDWHAHB,

Sanitize the airlock and put it back in. All should be OK. It's happened to me. No problems.

Don't worry about the beer itself. That CO2-rich Krausen will protect the beer.

If you can't rig a blow-off tube, get a sanitized metal ladle or small sauce pan and skim off some of the junk.

If you can rig a blow-off tube...do so. Your beer will be fine.

IF you have a pet in the house...you may want to search for any piles of explosive poo cuz the noise prolly scared the **** out of them.

That is hilarious. That brown spot on the wall look suspicious? (Projectile poo)
The reason it blew is that co2 was coming out at damn near the speed of light, that didn't stop just because it blew. The optimum time to have exposure to some nasties is during vigorous fermentation. They can't swim up stream.......unless some flying dog poo made it in. That would probably be devestating.

A. It probably isn't contaminated, all that foam keeps the nasties out.
B. It's rare for a fermentation to blow twice, so clean up and put the airlock back on. If you have a three-piece airlock, you can take the top off and invert a pint glass over it until things settle down.

FYI, the standard 5/16" ID vinyl tubing that is normally used as siphon tubing fits quite well into the standard grommet in the bucket lid where the airlock goes, at least on my bucket. Assuming the grommet size is pretty much universal. It's an easy way to rig up a blowoff tube - it's not as high-flow as you might use with a carboy, but it's better than the constricted opening that some airlocks have.