First brew, didn't go as planned

[VictimKBrew]

Finished brewing my first beer, an IPA, on Thursday night. Friday afternoon I checked on it, under the stairs in my basement, and saw that the stopper was foaming quite a lot and the airlock didn't have any of the vodka in there. (My buddy told me to use vodka instead of water in the airlock). I cleaned off the excess wort foam, refilled the airlock, and left town for the weekend. Came back to a basement that reeked of beer. My worst fear. The stopper shot off the top. I had splatter all over the door and crawlspace. I had the carboy wrapped in a blanket which took most of the damage. I plugged the stopper back into the carboy and moved it to my spare bathroom shower. My guess is that the carboy was unplugged for at least a day. There looks to be hardened wort foam on the inside top of the carboy. Any chance this beer can be saved?

 

[jasonsbeer]

Believe me, you are not the first to wish they had used a blow-off tube. I started using them exclusively and have retired my airlocks for most purposes.

RDWHAHB.

Give it a few days. You may risk having an infection, but you'll never know until you let it finish out. Because it was actively fermenting, you probably didn't get much oxygen in there. Odds are in your favor.

 

[Beer_Guy]

Hey, it might be your best batch so far.

Relax, it should be fine now.

 

[jollytim]

Though this can be a traumatic experience, the fact of the matter is that the beer is producing CO2. This CO2 pushes out the oxygen and will protect your beer. The airlock is a safety device, but isn't mandatory. The beer will be fine.

 

[Gridlocked]

Congrats on the first brew. It takes quite a bit for folks here to tell you to dump a beer for good reason. It takes a lot more than this to really ruin a batch. I would just progress as if nothing happened and see what you end up with, it will be just fine.

What type of airlock do you have? If you have the three piece lock, check out the bottom end - the one you stick into the rubber stopper. If it has a plastic X that closes the thing off, remove that and you'll have less of a chance of the deal blowing off again

 

[Gridlocked]

Hey VictimKBrew,

I thought you may appreciate this. I have an IPA that was born on Friday night and as of yesterday it was feverously bubbling away. I went to check the vodka level in the airlock last night and the fermentation had stopped. Turns out the air lock was plugged and building up pressure fast and I would have had the same problem you did - and this is about my 40th batch. I swapped out the airlock and that one plugged in about 2 minutes.

So, I scrambled and made a blow-off tube with a piece of 1/2", rubbery "funny pipe" irrigation pipe that I had in the garage and stuffed it over the business end of a three-piece airlock. This is 6.125 gallons of beer in a 6.5 gallon Carboy. I'm going to be adding a piece of 1" silicon tubing to my next order from the brewing store and phaze out the airlocks on the primary.

Disregard the gross looking basement.

and a little video of the action

 

[MikeRoBrew1]

I am interested to know if the OP was brewing a 5 gallon batch using a 6.5 gallon carboy or what the deal is here? I have never had this problem, should I be worried? I only brew 5 gallon batches in 6.5 gallon barrels.

THanks for the tip on cuttin the bottom of the airlock

 

[burnunit]

Your beer can not be saved. Please send it to me immediately for proper disposal. I will see to it your beer is given proper bodily filtration before removal through our city's water system. BTW, I offer this service to all fellow brewers, free of charge.

About six years ago I brewed my first imperial stout. Three days into primary I was sitting in my living room and heard a BOOM from the direction of the pantry. I seriously thought someone had fired a shotgun in the space between us and our neighbors! No, it was just wyeast 1028 removing the lid of my 6.5 gal plastic primary bucket. What a mess! (But I was also thinking, how awesome was that!)

I cleaned up, put the lid back on (yes, in that order) and let it finish primary with a garbage bag wrapped around it. I racked a few days later and it sat in the secondary for several months—each week my anxiety about infection from that explosion diminished.

I still dream of that beer, it was that good. If you have a fermentation so vigorous that it's exiting the fermenter, chances are very good it'll turn out just fine.

 

[VictimKBrew]

I used a 5 gallon carboy and maybe filled it up too much. That probably had something to do with it. I'm going to a local homebrew store this weekend to purchase a blow off hose and add that to my setup moving forward.

 

[MikeRoBrew1]

5gal carboy's work great as secondaries but for primary you should have a 6.5g carboy or bucket.

 

[Sammy75]

+1 on the larger primary.

Without the extra space at the top (headspace), the krausen and other junk in your beer can clog up your airlock causing the primary-bomb. While a blow off tube setup will help, you really want to have a larger primary.

 

[Gridlocked]

I didn't realize there were replies to this. ha! two months old...

This is a 6.5 gallon carboy. I transfer to 5 gallons after the primary, this one was just going insane and the recipe had plenty of hops.