Blew the lid off the bucket.... twice.... in 5 hrs

[BrotherFreeman]

Needless to say the fermentation became.... shall I say, vigorous... early this morning. I walked out to go to work and peaked in the garage to see the lid sitting 3ft away after having been jettisoned from the bucket. I wiped it down a pit, sanitized the rim of the lid and the bucket, put it back on, cleared the airlock (S type airlock, not sure of the true term). Stopped by on my lunch break and the lid was blown off again. I switched to a floating cap type one after cleaning the lid off again and resecuring it. Needless to say I should have used a blowoff tube (1.10 OG, it was bound to happen) but I dont have the tubing for it. My question boils down to the krausen, which was nice and rocky both times, will it somewhat protect the wort from contamination if the lid blows off again? Or will it simply hold an contaminants and drag them into the beer as it crashes at the end of fermentation.

Not having good luck with this beer from missed OG to rubber grommet dropping into the bucket and now the pressure issues.

 

[NordeastBrewer77]

time for a blow off tube thread.

the co2 in the fermenter will, in theory, protect the brew..... but do yourself a favor and use a blowoff tube.

 

[BrotherFreeman]

Hind-sight is always 20-20, will definitely get blow-tubing for my next big beer and do it appropriately. Good to hear about the Co2 though, fingers crossed. The eruption seems to have tappered when I got home this evening and the lid was still intact.

 

[theDeutscher]

The only time I've ever had the fermenter blow up on me was on my very first batch and I pitched the yeast at 90 degrees, not knowing any better at the time. Although, I've never done a beer at 1.100 (That's huge... That's what she said) but I've done beers around 1.070-1.080 without blowoff problems. How many gallons of beer are you fermenting and what size bucket are you using? What was the temp you pitched at? I've also seen people fill the airlock level too high and air can't travel freely through it, trapping CO2 in the bucket. Anyway you look at it, open fermentation during high krausen isn't necessarily bad. Many large breweries do it. The yeast love it.

 

[scottatdrake]

I've started adding a few drops of Fermcap S to my batches. It really cuts down on the foaming.

 

[jammin]

where's the obligatory splatter pics? if i'm gonna click on a blowoff thread - i expect to see a gnarly a pic or two damnit (kidding of course)


cheers

 

[BrotherFreeman]

Blah neither photo nor link worked, oh well. No splatter pic I guess.

 

[Boleslaus]

where's the obligatory splatter pics? if i'm gonna click on a blowoff thread - i expect to see a gnarly a pic or two damnit (kidding of course)


cheers

Exactly. Pics or it didn't happen.

 

[Grumpybumpy]

You don't have any tubing ? I just rig my 3 piece airlock with the tube I rack with and it works fine

 

[GySgtLynn]

I love when I get the onery yeast... Actually for the first time ever I have a pretty active lager fermentation going on.

 

[BrotherFreeman]

You don't have any tubing ? I just rig my 3 piece airlock with the tube I rack with and it works fine

Interesting, never really thought about doing it that way. I cleaned up the mess tonight, it was starting to smell pretty bad in the garage, and the head has dropped a bit and not nearly as much activite so it looks like I have weathered the storm.

I am fermenting in 6 gallon buckets with a little under 5 gallons in each.