first batch in years - fermentation blew the airlock off

[CGBill]

I cooked a batch of Belgian ale on Sunday. Pitched the yeast around 6:30 p.m. I checked on it 24 hrs later (yesterday evening) and the 6g carboy has a 3" head on it (airlock is going nuts). I figure this is good. Lot's of activity in the carboy, things are moving along nicely. I check on it again this morning, huge mound of foam on top of the carboy. I start to clean it up and realize the air lock is missing . That's when I realize there is debris on the walls and the ceiling. I find the air lock and clean up the mess. Fermentation seems to be going really strong. I am guessing that something must have bubbled up into the airlock to clog it enough to allow the pressure to build and blow the thing off. Any thoughts on this? I'm planning to add additional hard sugar in a couple of days when things calm down (if things calm down, lol).

 

[COLObrewer]

Search "blowoff tube" should fix it in the future. Welcome back to the addiction!

 

[CGBill]

Search "blowoff tube" should fix it in the future.

Thanks for the tip!

 

[ncbrewer]

Welcome back.

 

[CHans3]

Happened to me yesterday after brewing Sunday. I woke up Monday and already had blow off through my blowoff tube and it looked like everything had fallen back in already. This was my first yeast starter, so I figured the process just had sped up. It was also my first time using a swamp cooler, which had the beer pretty cold in the morning.

I decided to take the beer out of the cooler and replace the blowoff tube with my airlock. It was still bubbling, but it looked ok. I was pretty surprised when my roommate called me to tell me my fermenter exploded while I was at work. I guess the fermenter was so cool it calmed the activity, and as it warmed up again, this got vigorous enough to make my airlock go boom.

Live and learn I guess. This was the first time I removed the blow off tube before at least a week.

 

[Haussenbrau]

I always use a blow off tube for my entire primary fermentation period. I use an airlock in the secondary only. If you leave the blow off in place for the entire period of primary fermentation there is no risk of contamination. Think of a blow off tube as a very high capacity airlock.