brown gunk in airlock

[clklez3]

I made an oatmeal stout and put the airlock on around 5 p.m. then left. By the time I came back around midnight the airlock was bubbling. When I checked on it today at noon there was brown gunk blocking the airlock and no bubbling. I put in a new airlock and it is now bubbling frantically. I know I am probably worrying about nothing but because there were perhaps as many as twelve hours that the oxygen was trapped in the fermenting brew will this ruin my beer or create off flavors. I put this in the beginners forum because I am sure more experienced brewers have been asked this same question before but I really didn't have a lot of time to search and hunt for an answer. Any help is appreciated.

 

[Dave84]

Sounds to me like krausen has bubbled into the airlock and solidified, nothing to worry about a nice fermentation going on

 

[unionrdr]

Yeah, just a krausen blockage. Good thing you replaced it. You could've had a shart on your ceiling, etc.

 

[clklez3]

I just needed some reassurance. Thanks for the posts. I was afraid if this batch did not turn out well I would run out of stout:smack::smack:.How could be careless enough to let that happen? The horror. The horror.
I have just a couple of oatmeal stouts left from a batch I made in February and it was hard as hell to put back a few. I see now what everyone meant about letting stouts age. I am now vowing never to be out of stout again.

 

[BigRob]

There's no oxygen in the beer, all that would get trapped is CO2, and it would pressurize the fermenter to the point that it exploded, or (hopefully) a lid or bung let go and just sprayed a mess around the room. This is the exact reason it's recommended to use a blowoff tube for the first few days, for every beer. Unless you use Fermcap, but even then I would still have the blowoff tube on.

 

[DocScott]

Just a concern, but what temp is your beer at right now?

It's perfectly fine to have that vigorous of a fermentation that quickly with a large pitch of healthy yeast, but my worry is that with that much blow off, that quickly, your ferment temp may be too high.

I'll assume you're using a London ale or American ale yeast for the stout and would suggest a temp in the mid 60s for the first several days of primary.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[sportpak]

Yeah, just a krausen blockage. Good thing you replaced it. You could've had a shart on your ceiling, etc.

"...shart on your ceiling..." This is the funniest thing I've read on here all day. Lol

 

[fimpster]

You could've had a shart on your ceiling, etc.

Funny! I almost shart when I read this.

 

[unionrdr]

These kind of things always remind me of Duke Nukem, " Time to Kill" when he's in the old west coming out of that wooden fort. You see a out house across the way by the wall. You toss a stick of dynamite at it. If you watch closely, you se a pig cop on the head reading a newspaper. Boom! "woiiink"! Then there's the shiz splatter on the wall...

 

[GHBWNY]

Meanwhile............

Yeah, krausen, esp. in a chewy beer like a stout. I use an airlock, but agree that the blow-off tube, esp. with this style, would be a better bet and I'll use one next time I do a stout. Also agree that a stout can only get better with age. I did an oaked imp. stout in June and month-to-month, it gets deeper (and chewier!)

 

[william_shakes_beer]

To the OP:

I usually keep a spare clean airlock lying in my ferm chamber. If one gets plugged, pop the clean one in and fill it up with sanitizer. The krausen often needs some soaking time to release compeltely. If you're cleaning the airlock more then once or twice its time to rig up a blow off tube.