2nd batch.....question

[shawnstr71]

I brewed my 2nd batch yesterday. Woo hoo! So, I did a dunkelweizen. Got about 6.5 gal.s in fermenter. This time I used a blow off tube, instead of multiple airlocks. This morning I found it had blew off about a 1/2 gal. Into the pitcher and it was mostly luquid. My quest. Is.... is it normal for this amount of volume? And is it normal to have that much luiquid versus say the foamy goo?

 

[Jayslay]

Dp

 

[Jayslay]

You had an aggressive weizen ferment with not enough headspace. Are you talking 6.5 gallons as in 27 litres? Usually 5.5 gallons or so requires a blowoff, you just didn't have enough space and too much beer possibly.

And the word is LIQUID.

We're you keepin your temperatures around 70F or below?

 

[shawnstr71]

I have my thermostat the house set at 73 degrees. I have balance the utility bill with my thresh hold for yeast temps. I'm not sure how to convert gal.s to liters but I know I had about 3 inches of head space.

 

[501irishred]

Agree with Jayslay. If you're getting a significant volume of liquid through your blow off, you need to increase the size of fermenter (or reduce the batch size). Typically I'll try to allow 20-25% head space for most ale's but for hefeweizen / dunkelweizen and few others I'll go for 30-35% (and still expect a little loss).

 

[501irishred]

In gallons - batch size of 6.5gal should have a min ~8gal fermenter (20% head space = 7.8gal).

 

[shawnstr71]

Ok. Sounds like this is normal. Thanx guys! I purposly made the batch bigger so I would end up with an actual 5 gal.s. As a newbie I appreciate all the advise I get. I am so excited just to have 10 gal.s of beer on my kitchen table! Booyah

 

[501irishred]

Sounds like you have the bug for certain! Congrats on your first two!

I do similar in that my typical brew is 5.5 in the fermenter so I end up with fairly close to a full 5 in the end. When I'm using real aggressive yeast I just plan on scaling back the recipe a bit (easier than coming up with bigger fermenters and certainly easier than cleaning up after a beer volcano).....