I seem to be growing beer!

[mcslain]

I am making a Stone Ruination IPA and moved it to secondary for substantial amounts of dry hopping (3oz+ whole Centennial) a few days ago. Since that time though the liquid level in my carboy has kept rising. I've had to siphon it off twice now as it is over running my air loc. There is some fermentation going on, but I really don't think that could be the cause. No krausen or any anything, just a few bubbles... The only other thing I can think of is that the whole hops I put in are expanding and causing the beer level to rise? Is that possible?

Thanks!
Mark

 

[FensterBos]

Before you racked to the secondary, did you check your FG?

The hops could be expanding since hops are generally dried prior to packaging; they could be absorbing the moisture and expanding a little bit.

I would run a blow-off tube out of your carboy so you don't have to deal with foam/beer getting in the airlock.

 

[mcslain]

The FG when I racked was 1012 and seemed to be pretty much wrapped up. I had left it in primary for 10 days.

 

[osagedr]

Just had something very similar happen; added 1 oz of pellets to a carboy that I was certain had sufficient headspace and had beer back up into the airlock.