noob warning - near miss disaster

[beer_guy_dave]

I'm a relative noob in homebrewing. I've done a few wine kits, about 6 beer kits and some mead. I've read extensively about using blow off tubes and never had to consider doing it. My latest, a Skullsplitter clone kit, was done in a 6 gal primary fermenter (about a gallon of headspace which I thought was plenty). I should have known when ferment started in about 2 hrs.
The next AM (about 12 hours in) I checked the fermenter to find the air lock
full of krausen and a SMALL amout of overflow had escaped. I keep the fermenter in a large plastic tub which collected the mess and obviously there was no beer geyser.

Bottom Line -- I WAS REEEAAALLL LUCKY!!!!!

Next up is a Gulden Draak clone which I'm guessing will be at least as big as the current one. Will definitely use a blow off.

The moral of the story is dont think it can't happen to you.

Happy Holidays

Dave

 

[Deacon240]

Did you install a blow off tube yet? If not get one installed ASAP and just have the end that isn't on the fermentor in some sort of jug with a sanitization fluid or vodka (that'd be a lot of vodka). Sometimes those yeasties get pretty active.

 

[beer_guy_dave]

No blow off tube now. I took a gravity and its about 1.026 (OG 1.075 with a target FG of 1.021). I think I'm out of the woods with regards to fermentation. It looks and smells great. I started it too late to be ready for Christmas so I'll just be content with the recent batch of stout.

Dave

 

[KDM]

Big time n00b alert, have yet to boil a wort...

DQ: Why don't HB'ers just use a blowdown tube every time as standard procedure just to be safe?

Corollary to DQ: Does anybody really ever totally escape having to use one, or is it one of those inevitable gotcha's that come along sooner or later?

 

[RedIrocZ-28]

Big time n00b alert, have yet to boil a wort...

DQ: Why don't HB'ers just use a blowdown tube every time as standard procedure just to be safe?

Corollary to DQ: Does anybody really ever totally escape having to use one, or is it one of those inevitable gotcha's that come along sooner or later?

Well...When your first 3 beers start ticking away the little airlock like the directions say for a few days and then it stops, you think you're in the clear. Then you start getting adventurous and wanting to try bigger and badder beers like for instants a Russian Imperial Stout with an OG of 1.080 (or like .030 bigger than any beer you've done yet) last thursday... for instants. You stick your little airlock in the lid as you close up the 6.5gal fermenter with 5 gallons of liquid in it, and you forget about it. Remember this is all hypothetical, not that it happened to me, for instants. The next day the little airlock is ticking away nicely and you go play Halo for like 5 hours and come back to check on it, and you have krausen coming up through the airlock and the lid is distended somewhere around 1- 1 1/2" above its normal level surface. And as you yank out the airlock with Blowoff tube in hand ready to cram into the hole, as Krausen and all other manner of stinky goop flies out of the hole and onto you and your clothes and face, you realize this was a bad idea.

 

[KDM]

Gosh... Makes me wonder if such really happened to anyone??