Had a blow out!!!

Made my first all grain batch yesterday, and being as I don't have a bucket for primary, I have been using my 6 gallon carboy for primary. I have made probably about six batches and used a carboy for all of them no problems. Came home tonight and kaaablaaam!!! Airlock was six feet from carboy and foam was streaming out of the top. Pitched dry yeast right on top of wort. Primary is in basement at 62 degrees. Beer I made was a Pale Ale with an OG of 1.050. Any ideas?
Just in case you are wondering, I had 5.5 gallons of wort in 6 gallon carboy.

 

Yeah. Start using blowoffs instead of an airlock.

 

Luckily I learned that on my first brew. Always start with a blow off, unless you absolutely know the recipe/yeast. Even then, start with a blow off. Makes life easy and SWMBO much happier.

 

Well, I guess I will chalk it up to another lesson hard learned. I don't actually have a setup for a blow off, but i jammed a piece of hose into my three piece airlock and it seems to not be leaking around the edge. Other end in a jar of sanitizer. Hope this gets me through till I can get to the LHBS.

 

That's all I have been doing for the past 3 years. Works fine

 

Same here, only not as long (~4 mos). The only other thing I did was take a pair of pliers and remove the little cross of plastic in the bottom of the dismantled 3-piece airlock. That way if there is a little bit off hop gunk, it will hopefully go through without blowing. It moves easy between carboy and plastic bucket. I haven't seen a commercial blow-off, not to say there isn't one though. I start every one brew on it, then swap it out once I make my next brew. There is no reason except if you need to move the FV, etc, where you need to take the blow-off off. It is really just a big airlock.

I just went and looked at my last brew. Sure am glad I had the blow-off, otherwise it would be all over the place. Similar scenario, ~4.8 gals in a 5 gal carboy. At least, I think it's a 5 gal carboy, I got it second hand.

 

Damn blowouts..... Should have heeded your warning great brewmaster. I am but a young dumb grasshopper learning the hard way....

 

Only leaving 1/2 gallon of space is probably why that happened

I just put my Oatmeal Stout in a bucket at 3:00PM yesterday, with harvest yeast and used a yeast starter. At 9:00PM, i noticed it blew some of the sanitizer out of my airlock. So I sanitized a hose, and stuck that in there, and then the other end in a pitcher of sanitizer. I can see the top of the lid is puffing out, and the air is bubbling like crazy in the pitcher. So I think I saved myself from a blow out