Borderline Brew Bomb: Foam escaped sealed bucket

[Vorsicht709]

Two days ago I started a batch of Pale Ale. The morning after brewing, the fermentation bucket was extremely swollen and a tonne of foam was escaping from the blow off tube. As the day progressed an increasing amount of foam and gas was escaping through the blow off tube, and also from underneath the bucket lid.

I wasn't planning on racking to a carboy for secondary fermentation, but the seal on the bucket has me second guessing this. I am a little worried that:

1) The bucket no longer has a good seal because the foam was able to get out from underneath the lid.

2) Some of the foam and kreuzen that escaped will be caught in the gasket of the bucket lid, and will spoil.

I was thinking about taking off the lid so I can clean and sanitize it, before replacing it. Should this be okay? Or should I just rack the beer into a carboy which will have a solid seal.

Thanks in advance.

 

[flars]

After the very active part of the fermentation is over you can remove the lid for cleaning. Spray around the lid with Starsan first.

Make sure there has been no air movement from fans, furnaces, or vacuum cleaners before you do this. Bacteria can't crawl, but hey can be carried in air currents. Lay plastic wrap over the fermentor while you clean.

As long as the unrolled plastic wrap does not touch anything it should be sanitary.

The bucket will still be good for the typical fermentation time of three to four weeks.

 

[Vorsicht709]

So you wouldn't worry about the seal on the bucket?

 

[beergolf]

So you wouldn't worry about the seal on the bucket?

Nope. No big deal. Guess what, you will make beer.

 

[m1batt1]

So you wouldn't worry about the seal on the bucket?

Sounds to me like the yeast were kicking off more gas than your blowoff tube could handle and it popped the lid. For this round go with it like said above. And if you're worried about it on your next batch just buy a new lid. Though I doubt there's anything wrong with the one you have.

 

[kombat]

+1 on the advice given already. I just wanted to add that if you're blowing the lid off of a bucket so violently, you've probably either overfilled your bucket, or your bucket is too small, or you fermented too warm. I believe the buckets are a standard size, so if you nailed your volume there should have been plenty of head space. What temperature did you ferment at? What yeast did you use? Did you make a starter? If using dry yeast, did you rehydrate? How did you aerate?

 

[flars]

Don't worry about the bucket not having a perfect seal. Most buckets don't seal very well. Some fermenting buckets are designed for having the lid just setting on the top with no seal intended.

 

[Vorsicht709]

At 25 litres my bucket doesn't leave much headroom. It came with a brewing kit I bought several years ago. I thought I might have this problem, so I put in a blow off tube from the beginning. I didn't think it would be so bad haha. I noticed that all the shops in town only carry 35 litre buckets, so I think I might upgrade.

I used a sachet of coopers yeast which I rehydrated. I don't have an exact temperature for the beer, but the room temperature is 19 degrees Celsius. I aerated the wort by pouring it vigorously into the fermentor and giving it a good stir before pitching the yeast.

 

[flars]

At 25 litres my bucket doesn't leave much headroom. It came with a brewing kit I bought several years ago. I thought I might have this problem, so I put in a blow off tube from the beginning. I didn't think it would be so bad haha. I noticed that all the shops in town only carry 35 litre buckets, so I think I might upgrade.

I used a sachet of coopers yeast which I rehydrated. I don't have an exact temperature for the beer, but the room temperature is 19 degrees Celsius. I aerated the wort by pouring it vigorously into the fermentor and giving it a good stir before pitching the yeast.

Ambient temp of 19°C the wort temp may have achieved 22°C.

I've read a few posts where brewers have decreased the volume of their brews to 19 liters. This is also recommended on either the Coopers or Muntons site for a beer with more body.