worlddivides
Well-Known Member
I didn't use a blow-off tube because my latest batch is a cider and not a beer and I'd heard ciders are less likely to cause blocked-up airlocks. Plus the gravity was only 1.054, which I guess some people might consider on the lower end of "high-gravity." Plus, there was the fact that I had between 2 and 3 gallons worth of headroom.
So I woke up this morning to find the airlock bubbling away about 3-4 times a second (a new record for me), tons of foam all the way up to the stopper, and a huge huge chunk of pure chunky yeast in the airlock, moving up and down. I had to drive my girlfriend somewhere in 10 minutes, but I had seen the YouTube videos of plastic buckets that exploded from plugged-up airlocks, so I decided I needed to switch out the airlock soon. I made some StarSan water in my boiling pot and threw a spare airlock and stopper in there.
Then I tried to pull out the airlock and it shattered, slashing down my thumb. Luckily my thumb didn't start bleeding until I was away from the carboy, plus I know that I none of the plastic got in the carboy because the stopper hole was way too small and the breakage happened right above the stopper.
Put on a bandaid and had my girlfriend pull out the stopper. Put in the spare airlock, filled it with vodka, and sealed it.
Pros: The airlock was only broken for 3-4 minutes. The stopper was only off for about 10 seconds. The fermentation is going so violently that I doubt any airborne bacteria could have penetrated the thick walls of CO2. The inside of my fermentation bag smells like apple vodka (kinda weird, really).
Cons: Lost an airlock. Got myself a huge cut. Potentially exposed my batch to contamination (although kept to a minimum). The inside of my fermentation bag smells like apple vodka (due to the yeast? Or just the vapors?).
Potentially major disaster averted. Whew! So I'm wondering. Has anyone had a glass carboy explode from a plugged-up airlock?
So I woke up this morning to find the airlock bubbling away about 3-4 times a second (a new record for me), tons of foam all the way up to the stopper, and a huge huge chunk of pure chunky yeast in the airlock, moving up and down. I had to drive my girlfriend somewhere in 10 minutes, but I had seen the YouTube videos of plastic buckets that exploded from plugged-up airlocks, so I decided I needed to switch out the airlock soon. I made some StarSan water in my boiling pot and threw a spare airlock and stopper in there.
Then I tried to pull out the airlock and it shattered, slashing down my thumb. Luckily my thumb didn't start bleeding until I was away from the carboy, plus I know that I none of the plastic got in the carboy because the stopper hole was way too small and the breakage happened right above the stopper.
Put on a bandaid and had my girlfriend pull out the stopper. Put in the spare airlock, filled it with vodka, and sealed it.
Pros: The airlock was only broken for 3-4 minutes. The stopper was only off for about 10 seconds. The fermentation is going so violently that I doubt any airborne bacteria could have penetrated the thick walls of CO2. The inside of my fermentation bag smells like apple vodka (kinda weird, really).
Cons: Lost an airlock. Got myself a huge cut. Potentially exposed my batch to contamination (although kept to a minimum). The inside of my fermentation bag smells like apple vodka (due to the yeast? Or just the vapors?).
Potentially major disaster averted. Whew! So I'm wondering. Has anyone had a glass carboy explode from a plugged-up airlock?