Look's like it's going to blow

[Scruff]

Last night I made a honey wheat and all went well. When I woke up this morning the primary fermenter (plastic bucket) lid was bubbled up and air lock was working. The one thing that I did not get is a blow off tube. I can't tell if I should be freaking out yet. The plan was to stay home today. I have another bucket that was going to be for botteling, can I put half into it?

 

[IrregularPulse]

Go to Lowes and buy a piece of hose for a blow off. Of set in something or on a towel and pop the lid off to just lay loosely on it so it can overflow if it needs to. There's no concern of contamination with this with all the out force the co2 is putting off. Don't rack half your beer off the yeast!!
You can remove the lid and top hat portion of the airlock and fit a piece of tubing over the center stem of the airlock, or just push the tubing down the hole where the airlock was.

 

[Morkin]

I wouldn't risk transferring to another carboy during primary fermentation....

How big is your bucket? Usually they are about 6.5 -7 Gallons.... If I can assume that you put 5.5 or 6 gallons in the bucket, you shouldn't be getting Krausen pushing it up..... Also, you Krausen was pushing the lid up, you would be getting krausen in your airlock.

Is the airlock bubbling? If not you have a serious problem and the lid could potentially blow off. But if it's bubbling away, I would assume you have a warped lid and everything is fine.

 

[mojotele]

You can try cooling it down, too. That should slow fermentation down and prevent blow-offs.

If you aren't cooling it using a swamp cooler or something similar, just stick the bucket in a bathtub, close the drain, and fill the bathtub with cold water. The temperature will go right down. Keep it in 60s.

 

[Manfish]

+1 to the blow off tube. I had to do this on my latest batch. I brewed it Wednesday and by Thursday morning I was seeing krausen up in my airlock. I cleaned it and reattached and yet soon it was bubbling up through it again, so I grabbed some hose, sanitized it and made a blow off tube. Friday morning I woke to this... and it was during a slower time, the co2 bubbles went much faster than this at time...

[ame="http://vimeo.com/12302208"]http://vimeo.com/12302208[/ame]

 

[TipsyDragon]

i would put the bucket in the bath tub in case of catastrophic blowout it should be easer to clean up. if your worried i would just crack the lid a little and let the pressure escape. then in a couple days retighten the lid again. but first i would try the blowoff tube first.

 

[Scruff]

Well so far I put the pail in a loosely knotted trash bag, then in a plastic tray. I pulled the air lock (anticipating a torrent of foam) and nothing happened. The air temp is around 80 and getting warmer. This is my 3rd batch English brown, IPA, and now honey wheat. All of these the krausen fell in a short time. The bucket is a 6.5 to7 gal. ale pail. the receipt ended with 5.5 gal. I ended with maybe 6. Thanks for the responses. I will get the blow off tube tomorrow because my wife likes my beer!

 

[mojotele]

The air temp is around 80 and getting warmer.

You really want to keep the temperature of the beer down, then. Put it in cold water.