Disaster (mostly) averted! Thanks HBT!

[ElPresidente77]

So, through reading posts here I found that you pitch a new wort directly onto old yeast cake (which before I though was just nameless sludge). I had alot of older grains and hops that needed to be used or trhown out; and since I lost my job recently, and will be saving most of my well thought out brews on the holiday season the timing of this entire experiment could not have been better. I need beer to drink and doing this limited my expense to extract.

It was a high gravity trappist ale yeast to I did use quite a bit of fermantables (8# DME and 1# candy sugar). From what I had read on here I knew pitching on yeast cake would be quite the fermentation.

I brewed yesterday, took off farly well (was bubbling a couple of hours later) and I kept an eye on it. Well, this evening, sludge in the blow off, no bubbles and the lid on my ale pail was looking quite convex. I knew the signs (again something I learned here) this was going to blow soon if I didn't intervene. So I pushed down on the lid to hopefully unclog my blowoff. It nearly worked but got reclogged. With some of the pressure on the lid releived, I S..L..O..W..L..Y removed it, cleaned the blowoff and put the lid on the bucket but not sealed. Well, this sonofabitch is still going. Krausen pouring out the side. Below are pictures of the mess (your welcome). The SWMBO will see this in the AM and undoubtedly she won't be happy. But at least I didn't paint the walls.

Thanks HBT!!

Oh and sorry about the sideways pics.

The Mess
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38701009@N07/4031354072/

Some Spillover
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38701009@N07/4031354096/

So You Can See Just How Far The Lid is Off (my finger is where it should be if sealed)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38701009@N07/4031354112/

 

[Palefire]

That's awesome! I like pic #3 the best.

Oh, and congratulations on not painting the ceiling.

 

[shek]

you should draw some eyes and a nose on the lid and take a picture from above at an angle, so the overflowing foam looks like a "rabid" fermentation....