Airlock removal

[mongoose29]

Greetings all, first post so I have n00b question.

I'm brewing a brown ale using a recipe from Austin Homebrew. I pitched into the carboy around 8ish last night and I woke up to find the airlock bubbling away but it is a bit filled with gunk. I'm not especially worried about an explosion due to this, but I want to know if it is safe to remove the airlock for a few minutes to sanitize and replace it. I did a search of the forums here and it looks like I ought to be able to go for it, but I wanted to ensure that this would be ok to do this early in the fermentation process as I'd only started it about 12 hours ago. I attached a photo for reference.

Thanks for any help y'all can provide and if this has already been properly answered elsewhere please kindly point me to that direction and then proceed to hurl all manner of n00bish insultery at me.

 

[unionrdr]

With all the krausen & off gassing,I'd throw on a blow off tube & a jug 1/3 full of water & a splash of starsan.
Then clean & re sanitize the airlock,saving it for when the blow off dies down. It's the initial fermentation that's causing what you're seeing now.

 

[yancydc]

Absolutely. Take it off, clean, and sanitize. The CO2 pressure will keep anything nasty from getting in while you do that. You may want to rig up a blowoff tube instead, since that is obviously going pretty nuts!

 

[Pappers_]

+1 on the suggestions to use a blow off tube. If you can't do that, sanitize a piece of aluminum foil and crimp it lightly over the opening of the carboy, while the fermentation is still really active. When it dies down, put the airlock back on.

 

[Tall_Yotie]

Ewwwww.....

+2 on the blow off tube. Saves a lot of potential mess and easy to do. At least for next batch that is.

 

[RM-MN]

With that much activity, you could take the airlock off and throw it in the corner for a couple days. Nothing bad is going to crawl in through that mess to infect your beer.

 

[Huskysibe]

everything I brew gets a blow off tube for 3 days then an airlock after that.

 

[unionrdr]

That's pretty much what I had to start doing some brews back. Good insurance...most of the time.

 

[bredstein]

I would recommend a 6.5 gallon carboy. It is not much more expensive, and when not dropped on the floor can be passed to the following generations The AHS brown ale (Newcastle clone) was my previous brew, and I made it exactly 5.25 per instructions. That leaves plenty of room for the fermentation, so the airlock always stays clean.

 

[TomSD]

I gave up on airlocks...

 

[mongoose29]

Thanks for all the tips, I'll definitely be using a blowoff next time.

Further question: I came home to find that while my beer did not explode, there was no longer any activity whatsoever in the airlock. I cleaned and sanitized it, replaced it, and stirred the wort a bit to get it going again. Been about three hours since then and still no obvious activity. This a common occurrence? I thought that the fermentation would be noticeable for a few days at least. Thanks again.