Lost 1/2 gallon of AHBS Stone Ruination IPA due to foam. :(

[Austinhomebrew]

Sounds like you have a perfectly healthy fermentation. This is why we sell the 8 gallon bucket as a primary. The 6.5 gallon carboy is too small. Especially if you make a high gravity beer or want your beer to have a healthy fermentation. They need to make an 8 gallon carboy.

Forrest

 

[tdogg0413]

Sounds like you have a perfectly healthy fermentation. This is why we sell the 8 gallon bucket as a primary. The 6.5 gallon carboy is too small. Especially if you make a high gravity beer or want your beer to have a healthy fermentation. They need to make an 8 gallon carboy.

Forrest

yeah, definitely a healthy fermentation, of course double pitching the yeast likely helped. Just didn't know if there was anything I could, or should, do about losing the beer. Should I add water to bring it back up to the 5 gal mark, or just writoff the missing beer as "the rest will be really good!" Thanks Forrest.

 

[7Enigma]

Do NOT ADD WATER! All you'll do is water down your beer. What's lost is gone forever (the reason for my sorrow at the beginning of this thread). You're not losing water when it goes out the fermenter, you're losing wort which is essentially unfinished beer. So just consider it a shame and bottle when ready (or secondary if you are planning that).

One thing I wanted to mention that I don't think I did in this post since it's so old is I went ahead and got a bottle of the food-grade silicone for use as an antifoaming agent. You add 1-2 drops per gallon at the end of boiling and it is supposed to prevent this from happening (or at least lessen it quite a bit). I got it from AHS and used accordingly and it did absolutely nothing for me when I did a similar recipe. A real bummer since I was hoping to have my cake (continue using my 6.5 glass fermenter) and eat it too (not lose much/any).

Oh well. Beer turned out fantastic btw.

 

[tdogg0413]

thanks for the info, I was not planning on adding water, after reading a few more form threads. Will take a gravity reading when transferring to secondary. Should be in a keg in a week or two. My first beer, Sam Adams Summer Ale had almost no blowoff, and none loss, so this was definitely a bummer, especially since it's my first kegging experience.

 

[Austinhomebrew]

Best thing to do is use a larger primary fermenter because the yeast were behaving correctly. If you didn't lose beer then the fermentation would not have been so healthy. You want a healthy fermentation so a larger fermenter will let you have it without losing beer.

Forrest

 

[tdogg0413]

yes, and you're right, they need to make an 8 gallon carboy! By the way, moved to secondary just now, and the Gravity measured about 1.01, a little low (1.015), but I'll take it. thanks again.