Airlock has wine/foam in it

[Cectam]

Good evening,
This is the first time we are making wine. Our s airlock keeps sucking up either the foam or juice into it and the starts to spill out of it.. any suggestions of why this is happening and how to stop it? Thank you all so much.

 

[whoaru99]

One would presume you see the foam rising up to the airlock? Or, at least some witness marks the foam has been that high?

Depending on the batch and yeast there may be more or less foam. First few batches I made didn't foam much, never got remotely near the airlock level.

The most recent batch however was more agressive and it got into the airlock several times before it finally settled down.

A bigger fermenter or smaller batch would be one approach. I read some about using a foam inhibitor like Fermcap.

 

[Cectam]

thank you

 

[Rish]

Good evening,
This is the first time we are making wine. Our s airlock keeps sucking up either the foam or juice into it and the starts to spill out of it.. any suggestions of why this is happening and how to stop it? Thank you all so much.

Not terribly uncommon and not usually a problem other than being messy. Leave more head space in the fermenter and/or use a blow off tube instead of an airlock. Good luck!

 

[Raptor99]

I do primary fermentation in a food grade bucket covered with a towel. That way I can allow plenty of room for the foam.

I don't know if doing primary fermentation in a bucket would work for beer, but for wine, mead, and cider it works well. You don't need it under airlock until fermentation is nearly finished, around SG 1.010 or so.

 

[Closet Fermenter]

Just had the same happen to me; again. Been making wine for years and I should have known better, but I decided to go with a 3 gallon carboy instead of a 5 gallon. I had about 2-½ gallons of juice to ferment, and I knew it would be a risk. Not all batches get this active, but some do. Alas, this one did and pushed foam out the bubbler and onto the floor.
After cleaning everything up and sanitizing and refilling the bubbler, I repositioned the carboy inside a large stainless steel pot to catch any future mishaps.
It did get into the bubbler again, and I cleaned it again, but no overflow.

In the past, when working with store-bought juices, I usually withhold up to a gallon of the juice until that initial high activity settles down (if it happens at all), and then add the additional juice over the course of a few days to bring it up to full recipe.
I have no real concern about oxidation at this stage since the high activity of the yeast will consume the oxygen introduced by removing the bubbler.

It is important to make sure that the bubbler stays freely open. I had one years ago that clogged, built pressure, and forcefully erupted. Fortunately, I got home before the wife and had everything cleaned up before she got home. She did comment about how there was a nice grape smell in the house when she came in.