Lessons learned the hard way

[shellerb]

I brewed my third batch this afternoon using The Number 8 extract kit from Northern Brewer. It's a big Belgian dark strong ale. SG: 1.086. I also happened to use a big yeast starter with a stir plate for the first time. Thankfully, I stopped in at my local home brew shop yesterday and got a blow off tube, "just in case." I pitched the yeast at about 2:00pm. The airlock was bubbling at about 3:30 and getting faster every time I checked it. I decided to check one more time before going to sleep at about 11:00pm. I should have known when I am going down into the basement and it sounds like a tea pot that is ready. The krausen was coming up out of the airlock pretty quickly.

Lesson 1: Just because a couple of underpitched fermentations don't get close to the top of the carboy doesn't mean a pitch from a large starter won't.

Lesson 2: When removing an airlock under severe pressure, either close your eyes, turn your head, or wear safety glasses/goggles.

Semi-related Lesson 3: Don't set your Samsung Galaxy S3 cell phone in line with the connection between the wort chiller and the input tube. If you have a leak that can spray 6 feet or so, it will find your phone. Luckily, I saw it after just a couple of minutes of being sprayed and it was still ok.

Now that I've rinsed the beer out of my eyes and got the blowoff tube sanitized and in place, I have a question:

Do I lose anything important to the beer in all the krausen blow off? Or was that just going to be sediment in the yeast cake anyway?

 

[boist]

You aren't loosing anything important. There's plenty of yeast suspended in the beer and that's what's doing the hard work. Think of it this way: If the yeast hadn't blown out the tub, but stayed in the krausen, it still wouldn't have been fermenting your beer, so it really doesn't matter where it goes once it leaves the fermenting cycle. Anything that didn't fly out the tube would have ended up in the cake, probably as dead yeast.

As for Lesson 2: You can tilt the airlock towards you before you pull it out. This will create a gap in the lid facing AWAY from you, thus letting pressure vent without spraying you.

 

[Calder]

Just get in the habit of using the blow-off every time, and you will not have any worries again.

Some Belgian yeasts can be pretty active.

Nothing important went out the blow-off. That is, if you don't consider the lost beer important.

 

[beergolf]

Lesson 2: When removing an airlock under severe pressure, either close your eyes, turn your head, or wear safety glasses/goggles.

Brewkakke...........