Krausen climbing up the air lock

[Aki]

Hi,

I brewed a stout yesterday and I’m using small fermenter the first time. I thought I left enough headspsce but clearly didn’t. I went to check on it and Krausen has climbed up the air lock. Is this a problem, and can I do anything?

 

[doug293cz]

It's not a problem yet. If the airlock clogs and blows out, just clean it, refill with sanitizer, and replace. Repeat as necessary. As long as the airlock keeps blowing out, you are generating enough CO2 to purge the headspace of O2, and protect the beer from oxidation.

For future batches, leave more headspace, or use a blow-off tube in a jar of water instead of an airlock.

Brew on

 

[Aki]

Great, thank you Doug!

 

[VikeMan]

I thought I left enough headspsce but clearly didn’t.

I recommend taking your batch volume and adding 30% for head space. For example, if you have 1 gallon of wort going into the fermenter, the fermenter should be about 1.3 gallons. If that's not possible, consider looking into using fermcap. A lot of people seem to think the "norm" is to blow off a lot of stuff through a blowoff tube ("Man, this yeast is a real beast!"), then switch to an airlock when the fermentation slows down, but I find that approach weird.

 

[Aki]

I recommend taking your batch volume and adding 30% for head space. For example, if you have 1 gallon of wort going into the fermenter, the fermenter should be about 1.3 gallons. If that's not possible, consider looking into using fermcap. A lot of people seem to think the "norm" is to blow off a lot of stuff through a blowoff tube ("Man, this yeast is a real beast!"), then switch to an airlock when the fermentation slows down, but I find that approach weird.

All right, perhaps I’ll buy some bigger cans and make them my fermenters then!

 

[Lefou]

The container you're using would be fine for wine or cider.
When dealing with hopped beer wort you're going to have a level of proteins mixed in with hop oils and sticky yeast, so always expect some amount of foaming when your headspace is limited.