First brew, very fiesty, clogged airlock

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Hey y'all! My name is Jonathan, and I am a beeraholic. Can't get enough beerahol. First time here, hope you don't mind me staying for a bit.

I just started my first home brew on Saturday: an American Amber ale using nugget and williamette. The pre-fermentation process carried on pretty smoothly save for an unanticipated 2-hour wort cooling.

My first is sitting in my closet right now in 65-68 degree temperature and fermenting vigorously. A little too vigorously...

5425304711

http://www.flickr.com/photos/49963502@N00/5425304711/

There's krausen crawling its way into the neck and into the airlock. Sediment has also seem to make its way into the airlock. I cleared the sediment and foam in some sanitizing solution, but it seems to be clogging up again, at least with krausen.

What kind of action should I take? I've read many other threads addressing similar problems, and the consensus seems to agree upon either constantly cleaning the airlock or removing the airlock entirely since the fermentation is active.

Also, how's my beer looking? I got a lot of sediment into the fermenter and it seems to be floating around and even sticking to the inside of the top of the carboy. Should I be worried? Thanks!
 
Welcome and congratulations on your first vigorous fermentation, it looks perfectly normal.

You can rig a blow-off tube for the spewing problem or simply place some aluminum foil over the top until the primary phase is over.
Blow-off tube = long tube sticking in the airlock hole with the other end in a jar of water (try to keep the jar below the top of the fermenter, the lower the better).
 
First welcome to HBT!:mug:
Now for your fermentation, I would probably use a blow off tube or this will keep happening until fermentation subsides some. Get yourself about 4' of 1" tubing and take out the airlock and jam the tubing in the neck of the carboy. Run the tubing into a jar or whatever with enough diluted starsan or vodka to cover the end, the kraussen will creep up the tube and some of it will end up in the container. When fermentation has subsided some put the airlock back on. Voila!:rockin:
 
Picture looks good / Normal !

Above suggestions are right on target.


Two suggestions from my end,

1) Those airlocks, clip the tip off of those. There is a 4 way web deal on the end of the airlock, I guess made that way makes it easier to stick them in a rubber plug. Just nip the whole end off and you will have much less probability of plugging up.

2) Fermcap-S. Buy it and use it. Dirt cheap and it solves a lot of problems.

Just my opinion.
 
Thanks for the input everyone! I ended up rigging a blow-out tube to a jar full of sanitizing solution. Thankfully, it's still actively bubbling and is even spewing out some sediment from the fermenter.

For my next batch, I'll probably get some of that Fermcap-S. With my current blow-out tube setup, I'm worried I might forget there's a jar of water sitting there and end up knocking it over!
 
Should have really come here earlier, was doing an "easy" hefeweizen for my second batch of beer. Airlock became clogged and the lid exploded off the primary scattering krausen everywhere. I'd have taken pictures but it didn't look half as bad as my wife described. If anyone has any tips for dealing with her rage, that would be welcome. Complimenting the wonderful aroma her new coat now has did not work as planned. The tip to create a blowoff connector using the three piece airlock though were right on target.
 
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