Imperial Stout bubbling through airlock, what to do?

[Donosaurus]

This is what I discovered this morning when I checked how my imperial stout that I brewed on Saturday is doing. My biggest concern is the airlock getting plugged and the lid blowing off of the fermenter. The batch did come out a bit over 5 gallons so the fermenter is pretty full. What should I do about this?

 

[deputyandy]

Blowoff hose asap!

 

[TheBrewinator]

I would get a blowoff tube on there asap otherwise you are correct, you run a good risk of blowing the lid.

 

[BradleyBrew]

yes, blowoff! Or your lids going to blow off and cover the place with delicious Imperial Stout.

 

[Donosaurus]

This about how it is supposed to be done? Never had to do this before.

 

[kh54s10]

That is right. Start every fermentation that way.
You may not need it, but if you do and you are not there to add it later, you could save a job of cleaning krausen off the ceiling!

 

[sweetcell]

yup, looks great! is the hose-to-lid connection airtight? you want a tight seal so all escpaing co2 is forced through the tube and down into the sanitizer. as long as bubbles are being produced in the sanitizer, you should be good to go. you could sprinkle a little sanitizer around the seal and see if any bubbles are being produced there by escaping gas, but even that wouldn't be the end of the world as long as it's a very minor leak. once activity dies down in a day or two, you can return to your regularly-scheduled airlock.

fyi, you don't need to use that much sanitizer - no harm in doing so either, but you really just need enough to keep the end of the hose underwater (undersanitizer?). so instead of 2-3 inches in a wide bowl, you could have put 2-3 inches in a narrower bottle, vase, jug, etc.

 

[malevolent]

Imperial stouts create nightmare messes. I generally split ferment a 6 gall batch between 2 6 gallon fermenters.

Edit:

 

[Donosaurus]

Yeah this thing is bubbling like crazy compared to the other batches I've brewed thus far.

 

[fletchsj]

I've converted to 8gal buckets for anything over 1.080 5 gal batch has plenty of room to go crazy...