No hot or cold break, mess now

[titleist]

Need a bit of help here...

Did a blue moon clone the other day, never got a hot break or cold break. Not much left in boil pot. Now I've got a blown airlock with dried foam almost like cement and the entire airspace in the carboy is filled with this semisolid foam now that's not going down on day 3 of ferm.

Should I rack this to get rid of all this gunk and let it finish fermenting in a new carboy without all this gunk or let it ride?

At the moment the best I could do was put a rag soaked in starsan over the top of the lock to keep it from blowing all over the place. Only lock I had was the silicone stopper type with holes and a flap to let CO2 escape so now it's stuck shut.

Was thinking racking, cleaning gummed up airlock and finishing...yes?

 

[flars]

Leave it the way it is. You had a fairly normal fermentation. Have a blow off tube ready to use for your next brew.
The krausen will begin dropping in a few more days to a week from now. Completely normal. The dried krausen, inside the carboy, is in a sterile environment and will have no detrimental effect on your beer.
Clean the cap and reinstall it when krausen is no longer being forced out. Keep your make shift air lock damp with Starsan.
That was good thinking in what was probably a stressful moment.

 

[flars]

Was this Blue Moon clone all grain or extract? It does sound like you applied to much heat to your boil kettle, which resulted in the extreme boil off. The wort surface, in the boil kettle, only needs to be rolling over part of the surface to be effective.

 

[SmokeyMcBong]

Was this Blue Moon clone all grain or extract? It does sound like you applied to much heat to your boil kettle, which resulted in the extreme boil off. The wort surface, in the boil kettle, only needs to be rolling over part of the surface to be effective.

(?) I think "The not much left in the pot" he was talking about was, there wasn't much hot or cold break left in the pot. Not that he boiled off and had not enough wort.

To the O.P., you're probably fine. You cleaned up good and made the best effort to keep the environment sanitized.

 

[titleist]

Well I couldn't tolerate it anymore. I racked, and since I was enraged all during the entire process of racking I'm sure this will end up infected.

The entire contents of the boil pot ended up in the fermenter. Never got a hot break or cold break so every iota of protein ended up in the fermenter along with all the hops and gunk.

Included is what the carboy looked like today. Nothing but cemented yeast all over everything and everywhere.

Now in hindsight and after reading the first post I could have chosen to clean the garbage off the outside, clean the neck and lock and sanitize them and put it back on, but all the cement and garbage inside the gallon and a half air space inside the carboy would have remained.

Panic and anger got the best of this one.... let's see what the siphoned experiment turns into shall we?

1 pack of wyeast, wasted along with the DME and grain. Nice.....

Just to add, I had 6.5 gallons boiling in a 10 gallon blichmann. Rolling boil... don't know how I could have boiled it faster without scorching the bottom.

Poor planning on my part I had no paddle long enough to reach the bottom to whirpool so I just used the clean spoon, but you can't see through the wort to know if you got a mound or not.... as I also doubt my vorlauf did any good, went through 3 pitchers each time and still got a ton of garbage in the wort. Grain bill 40% wheat, rollers at .039. Went slow on vorlauf but obviously not slow enough I guess.

Way too much garbage got into the fermenter, and it all coagulated during a strong ferment and cemented a gallon .5 of headspace into a block of yeast.

 

[titleist]

Was this Blue Moon clone all grain or extract? It does sound like you applied to much heat to your boil kettle, which resulted in the extreme boil off. The wort surface, in the boil kettle, only needs to be rolling over part of the surface to be effective.

all grain... yah the prob was no break was removed during the boil and it all went into fermenter along with most of the yeast.

It's gun hunt opening this weekend, my dogs were all over the garage during the process and I had a neighbor staring at me waiting for it all to finish so we could eat and start drinking. You couldn't have asked for a worse situation to try and brew your first beer in.

 

[The_Bishop]

First off - It's no big deal if the break and trub ends up in the fermenter.

Second - Learn to RDWHAHB.

 

[flars]

That doesn't look to bad. On your ceiling would look bad.

 

[vincentAlpha]

I've had some bad ones too, blew an airlock right off and shotgunned the underneath of my counter with gunk before I learned to use a blow-off for the initial of the primary(the missus was not pleased with the kitchen smelling like stale hops...). I wouldn't go pouring it down the sink just yet should the thought enter your mind, if it doesn't get infected a bit of extra time before and after bottling could help things quite a bit. When it comes to homebrewing and things going bad Bishop has the right idea, RDWHAHB and try not to get too worked up.

 

[Brew_G]

First off - It's no big deal if the break and trub ends up in the fermenter.

Second - Learn to RDWHAHB.

Exactly. Next time, if you post a question looking for some help, take the advice given. Kick back and relax, because most likely what you think is a problem isn't a problem at all.

 

[BigHefty]

That doesn't look to bad. On your ceiling would look bad.

Been there, done that!

 

[MaxStout]

Don't worry about the trub. You'll rack off that later and make a good beer.

Looking at it now, it's hard to believe something so tasty comes from a process so nasty looking. Kind of like sausage--once you see how it's made, it's kind of gross. But the end product is still delicious.

Good thinking about covering the airlock with a Starsan-soaked rag. That was clever.

 

[titleist]

I'll save the advice for next time.

As for this batch, 2/3 was racked and is now sitting in another carboy trying not to turn into a living creature. The 2lb of paste yeast and mess is in the tub soaking. Wasted wort.

After all this mess, the question would still linger if it's possible to narrow down, what can cause zero hot break when you have a full boil?

Initial gravity was 1.052, I was nearly pinpoint on my temps. Everything was clean and PBW'd/Starsan'd.

I'm on well water.... too much calcium/mineral? No water report

 

[jbb3]

First off, relax. It's a hobby and hobbies are supposed to provide enjoyment. But I see from your post name, you're probably used to being frustrated with your hobbies...

Second, blow-off tube, blow-off tube, blow-off tube... You always wonder why you do it until you need it. You just happen to need it right off the bat.

Putting hot break/cold break in the fermenter or not having hot/cold break during your boil and cool down (you probably did and didn't notice) has nothing to do with the overflow of krausen you experienced. Excessive/overflow of krausen can be the result of a combination of several things.

It could be;

• Not enough head space in your fermenter - If you put 6 gallons of wort in a 6-1/2 gallon fermenter, you're going to have blow-off.
• Wort temperature too high for yeast strain - Pitch your yeast as close to the target temp as possible. After pitching, control fermentation temperature so it stays within the recommended temp range of the yeast you're using. Otherwise, you can get excessive krausen due to an overly aggressive fermentation and off flavors in the finished product.
• Some yeast strains are fast starters and simply more active/aggressive than others. Very important to keep these strains within the recommended temp range to prevent excessive blow-off and off flavors.
• A combination of all the above.

Blow-off is not bad in itself and is normal for a fast starting fermentation. But it can be a symptom of something else going on as mentioned above.

Last, expect the unexpected. Know going in that not everything is going to go as planned. Take notes on every batch and before the next batch, read through those notes to see if there is something you can do differently OR stay with what works.

I hope that helps. Good luck!

 

[BlueHouseBrewhaus]

If your wort boiled reasonably well, you got a hot break. If you cooled it to pitching temps, you got a cold break. All that happened is that you didn't separate them out. You're sweating over the hot break and cold break getting into the fermenter. There are plenty of us on this site that routinely pour everything (hot break, cold break, hops, small mammals, ets) into the fermenter and produce good, even award-winning, beer. Definitely not something you need to worry about.

There's even a thread here somewhere comparing fermenting with and without break material. A slight edge in flavor actually went to fermenting with all the break material in the fermenter.

So, as you've already heard, Relax Don't Worry Yada Yada Yada.

Oh, and rig a blow-off next time. An easy way is to use the main piece of a 3-part airlock and attach some siphon hose to the center tube of the airlock. Just insert the airlock piece in the stopper and put the other end of the hose in a jug of Starsan.

 

[MaxStout]

One other thing...don't be in a hurry to rack to secondary. You said you brewed the other day, and that you have now racked it. You may have lost a little more wort to the trub, as the trub hadn't settled yet and there is some good wort mixed in with it. Waiting a few more weeks to rack means that trub will settle more, and you'll get more beer from it. And not all beers need to be racked to secondary anyway. Most can ferment in primary, then rack to bottling or kegging once you are certain fermentation is done.

Not to worry. You'll still get good beer, just a little less of it.