water getting sucked up into air lock

[jrfk2]

Hi Folks, I've been home brewing mead for about 3 years and something weird is happening with the airlock on one batch of mine ..

I racked my batch into a 3 gallon carboy with a rubber stopper and air lock .. in the cool dark basement where temp is pretty constant .. all was as usual .. then one day I looked and the water that's supposed to float the airlock was sucked up into the inside top of the air lock which had no dropped .. and I wondered if maybe it was like from a change in air pressure or what ..

So I replaced that with a different airlock with the water back to normal yesterday .. and its back to the water sucked back up inside the airlock ..

This batch was at the point where its not expected to be releasing/bubbling much at this point .. so I was expecting at most the airlock would remain steady or maybe drop ..

But why does the water keep getting sucked up into the airlock, any ideas?

Cheers ..

 

[day_trippr]

Your fermentor has a significant head space above the wort/beer, and apparently the ambient temperature is anything but constant. During the cooling cycle the head space contracts and sucks at the blow-off hose.

You really only need a blow-off for the initial throes of fermentation. If that fermentation is just pissing along, switch to an S-Lock and you won't have to deal with suck-back...

Cheers!

[edit] Whoops! Singletrack helped me realize this wasn't a blow-off hose thing.
And 3-piece locks pissed me off enough that I tossed 'em all and replaced them with S-locks....

 

[Singletrack]

I'm guessing you are using a 3-piece airlock. Water is not supposed to float the inside piece. Gas floats this piece, but only if your fermentation is producing gas. Otherwise, it sinks. A small change in temperature can suck that piece down and then continue to suck some liquid.


As noted by @day_trippr, an S-lock will work for your situation.

 

[helibrewer]

Use a long blow off tube with a small quantity of water