Explosive fermentation

[Toto's]

Hello guys,
I intend to brew a 5 gallons recipe of Oktoberfest this monday with a Munich Lallemand yeast. I have a 23L fermerter and i end up having about 19-20 Liters of worth but the fermentation is always explosive and the first 2 to 4 days the cap is ejected many times!! Lol
I use an airlock. I harvest my beer and started my starter [1 liter] yesterday.
I was thinking to put only half of my starter this time at the beginning and put the 2nd half after 2-3 days. I
Good or bad idea?
Up to now this yeast is the only one who is giving me trouble.
My fermentation temperature is 13 degrees and usually leave the beer 3 weeks in the fermenter.
Thank you and happy Easter

 

[hotbeer]

I'm just a newb, but I use a blow off tube with the end stuck in a bottle of sanitizer for the first few days of ferment. Once things settle down, I'll stick an airlock on.

If you are having such fast gas production, you might need to use a considerably larger diameter tube than the will fit in the hole that you airlock fits into. So if that's a stopper, you'll need to change it too.

 

[dwhite60]

Keeping it cooler will slow it down. Try the low end of the suggested temperature range.

 

[Toto's]

I have no choice to stick with the 13 degrees because i am lagering a rice beer and i only have 1 freezer with temperature control . But to me the easier would be to put half of my starter and put the rest few days later. But didn't got any advice on that subject yet. The OG should be around 1.046

 

[d3track]

No to underpitching - especially a lager - this falls into the "do not recommend" area

 

[dwhite60]

No to underpitching - especially a lager - this falls into the "do not recommend" area

Don't underpitch. Adding more yeast after the initial pitch is questionable. You may create a volcano effect adding the second batch to already fermenting beer.

1. Make a smaller batch to allow more headroom.
2. Split the full batch between two fermenters, use a second bucket if you have to.
3. Like I previously posted, find a way to keep it cooler.
4. Big blowoff tube.

 

[tbaldwin000]

Hello guys,
I intend to brew a 5 gallons recipe of Oktoberfest this monday with a Munich Lallemand yeast. I have a 23L fermerter and i end up having about 19-20 Liters of worth but the fermentation is always explosive and the first 2 to 4 days the cap is ejected many times!! Lol
I use an airlock. I harvest my beer and started my starter [1 liter] yesterday.
I was thinking to put only half of my starter this time at the beginning and put the 2nd half after 2-3 days. I
Good or bad idea?
Up to now this yeast is the only one who is giving me trouble.
My fermentation temperature is 13 degrees and usually leave the beer 3 weeks in the fermenter.
Thank you and happy Easter

No don't pitch half first then half 48 hours later, if you were going to do that then you'd be better off not pitching the second half at all and saving the rest for another beer. Why? Because in those 48 hours since you pitched the first half the wort has allowed those first 100bn or so cells to become over 1000bn cells, so adding in another 100bn cells at that point would be entirely pointless, and if anything just make your beer worse.

Use a blow off tube.

 

[Toto's]

All right guys i hear you....
Under pitch is a NO! NO!
I will do a DIY blow off.
Thank you for your feed back

 

[BrewZer]

All right guys i hear you....
Under pitch is a NO! NO!
I will do a DIY blow off.
Thank you for your feed back

Your blow off could be as simple as a three-piece lock without the lid or the bubbler inside, with tubing on the center tube down into a quart jar half-filled with StarSan...

 

[TheBluePhantom]

You could cut a hole in a squeaky toy and put that on the top. It won't work as an airlock, but you will know instantly if your fermentation slows, or becomes clogged.

Or you could do the real blow off tube... I have one myself. Better to do the temperature lower, but if that is not possible...

 

[Toto's]

Well i brew today and it's all in the fermenter now. I did a blow off...
I will see in the few coming days if it works well . I lowered the temperature in my basement at 11 but not sure if the temperature will go down.... it's getting warmer outside....

 

[VikeMan]

Lallemand Munich yeast is not a lager strain. I suppose it's possible that it will ferment at 11C (52F), but I probably wouldn't try that as a solution to prevent blowing off.

have a 23L fermerter and i end up having about 19-20 Liters of worth but the fermentation is always explosive and the first 2 to 4 days the cap is ejected many times!! Lol

3 Liters of headspace for a 20 Liter batch is really too small. You might get away with that sometimes, but not consistently. For a 23L fermenter, I wouldn't recommend more than 17 Liters of wort. Maybe 18L. If you feel you have no choice but to do 20L in a 23L fermenter, you might consider using Fermcap-S, which would reduce the krausen considerably.

 

[Toto's]

fermentation started.
yha i know that i push it over the limit but i will give it a try for the last time with a blow off before i become reasonable lol. Temperature is 13 degrees and it will not go lower so it will be fine.
somehow i dont know why i thought 13 degrees was the ideal temperature but you are right it should be 17 degrees!!! Ho well i can tell you that 13 works as well i must have brew more than 10 beers at that temperature..... i try to imagine the volcano explosion i would have had at 17 degrees

 

[hotbeer]

Can't tell the scale of things from the picture. That doesn't seem like much headspace for the primary. If it gets too strong a bubble you will loose some. But that's probably okay. I lost a little with my first ferment and it filled the bottle I had the sanitizer in.

And if that tube isn't at least 3/8" to 1/2" ID (9 mm to 13 mm), I'd be a tad scared.

You are giving temps in Celsius? 13°C = 55°F

 

[Toto's]

It's a 1/2 inch inside of the tube and yes its in Celsius

 

[Toto's]

Update.....
Fermentation is going great. Vigorously working and the blow off tube works like a charm. A had maybe 20.25 L. Before fermentation started and now i have 20 L.
So i did lost a little but very happy.
I will let you know the final quantity.