fermenter explodes on second batch

Hi i am new obviously and on my second batch i come down stairs about 10:00am Friday to see my bucket open and beer splatered everywhere. It was wensday about 4:00 pm when i started fermenting. What did i do wrong this time? Thanks in advance

 

wester,

You just had a healthy fermentation!! Nothing wrong at all!! I'm assuming you were using an airlock like a 3 piece or S type and that got clogged with krausen. Pressure built up and BOOM, lid flew off.

Your best bet, and what many of us do, is to setup a blow-off tube for the first week or so of primary fermentation. If your using a 3-piece airlock, you can take the cap and inner part off and put a racking tube over the inside tube of the airlock. Then put the other end of the tube into a small bucket of sanitizer or boiled water and you shouldn't have that problem any more!

 

This is normal with a very vigorous ferment when you don't allow for blowoff.

I'm assuming your fermenter had an airlock on it - one of the small clear plastic ones. With very vigorous ferments this may not let gas escape fast enough and you have to replace it with a blowoff tube. What are you fermenting in and how large is the fermenter?

For more on blowoff tubes:
Blowoff tube - Home Brewing Wiki

Note that the use of PVC is really kind of excessive and using regular vinyl tubing is usually sufficient.

 

That happened on my first batch also. Like these guys said - blowoff tube. Also, sometimes you get more of a violent fermentation with warmer pitch temps / fermentation temps. You can put your fermenter into an ice bath (a bucket filled with water) and change out a few frozen water bottles once or twice a day. Your beer will thank you.

 

The same thing happened to me on my second batch:

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/second-batch-first-explosion-114252/

What type of beer were you brewing? Mine was a wheat beer, and from what I gather, those can ferment more vigorously than other types sometimes...

Good luck with the clean up!

 

No pics?

 

I always see people recommending attaching a tube to a 3 piece airlock but there is no reason for it. All you are doing is increases your chances of a clog. Stick the tube right into the hole you would put the airlock in.

 

Thanks for all the responses the beer is a Weizenbier from brewers best i used a liquid yeast to make it a heipenvisen (sorry can't spell it). It was probley at 70 degress when it opened itself.

 

+1 If you read my thread, that's where I went wrong. Take the airlock out of the equation.

 

Think of this as the one time in your life where getting sprayed in the face is ok!

 

It seems that most of these exploding primaries are being caused by the "Ale Pails" you see out there. In my experience, I have never had the need for even a blow off tube on my primaries.

I do, however, use the wine making bucket which I believe is right around 7.9 gallons. Although there is more headspace in the bucket, I'm not too concerned with oxygen in the primary. Any oxygen that is in the headspace will be completely gone by the time fermentation has begun due to the release of CO2 forcing out the oxygen.

Anyone else use the wine buckets as primaries? Any issues or problems you see with using this container compared with the 6 gallon bucket?

 

I agree. The beer foam will come out and it must be unrestricted or BOOM!!!

I NEVER use 3 piece air locks any more.

 

I agree with the early posters. The beer foam will come out and it must be unrestricted or BOOM!!!

I NEVER use 3 piece air locks any more.

 

One issue with the three piece airlock blow-off tube setup is with the little cross shaped guard at the end of the airlock. I think most people who do the airlock style blow-off tube that still have a clog or explosion probably don't clip that thing out. I just used a pair of fingernail clippers and took the cross guard out of all of my airlocks.

 

I use a Dremel tool.

 

You really can just push them against a counter. They break right off.

 

+1 ------------------------------------------------------

 

...but what fun is that?!?!?! This Dremel idea is appealing to me! Hmm, or perhaps some sort of bench grinder!!!!!!