I brewed a coconut milk stout for my fiances birthday beer. Everything went well, numbers were all good and fermentation was active within hours. Well, I came home from work and checked the closet where the beer was fermenting and the darn thing had blown it's top. Beer all over the basement, and it was lava flowing out the top!
I cleaned up what I could, washed the airlock out and resanitized everything. A couple days later, I pushed on the carboy (6 gallon BB) which I often do to get a smell of the brew, and this one was rancid! Smelled like rotting fruit. I attributed that to the fermentation blowing up and just assumed that some nasties from the air got in there while the beer was exposed to air.
Three weeks goes by, still smells bad, but I have an obligation to complete this birthday brew, so I rack it into a secondary over 3 pounds of toasted coconuts. A couple weeks pass, each day I smell the airlock, same fruity smell, very astrigent. Christmas comes around, it's already past her birthday and I've given up on the beer, but I don't want to dump it...so it sits in there for another couple weeks on the coconut.
Finally I needed the bucket it was in for another brew, so I decide to just deal with it. I dipped in a sanitized tasting glass, and swirl it around in my mouth and who would have thought that it actually cleaned itself up, and while the taste isn't perfect, it's very much a drinkable brew now! The beer sat on the coconut for so long that there is no doubt what the beer is; it's blasting with toasted coconut flavor!
On tap right now carbing up; and one lesson learned; give it time, and use a blow-off tube in the future.
