Primary Explosion !! What to do? Pics !!

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chefchris

chefchris

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Alright, as you can tell from my pictures I had a primary explode on me. Now, my question is how do I get the lid back on? Do I scrape off all the krausen or just let it settle on it's own?

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LOL whoa, ive never seen an explosion that big before. I would say carefuy scrape off some with the lid and let the rest fall on its own. Probably a good idea to clean and sanitize the lid first and rig a blowoff tube where the airlock goes also.
 
hahahahahha! Nice fermentation! I would sanitize a metal spoon and the bucket lid, and scrape off the excess krausen for sure. For a blowoff tube, just use some racking tubing and attach it to your airlock. This will relieve the pressure, but most likely you won't need it, as the most active part of your fermentation is past. Thanks for the pics and the laughs!
 
Holy monkies... i brewed some cheery whine once and had somthing like that because i used unprocessed cheery juice... but nothing like that... i hate to laugh at anothers misfortune but that is one big explosion, must smell somthing ferice, in your position i would probably sterlize a spoon (or a cement trowel in your case:rockin:) and then do as everybody else told you... Cool picture, i would put it in a scrap book of your brewin mishapes so that years from now when you can make a great beer like Magiver; you know with a water bottle, a piece of garden hose, a box of cherios, and a old pack of yeat you found under the couch (note this would probably taste horrid) and get somthing like a Bells Winter Ale then you will just look back and laugh... i have one of those scrap book, and i looked at it the other day and i didnt laugh... so unfortuatly im not a Magiver brewer yet... but its a goal :rockin:

Cheers
 
Alright, got the krausen scraped off and blow off tube on. Within 1 minute the tube was filling up with krausen. I have a feeling it's gonna blow off again. I've heard about lids blowing off primary's but didn't know if I believed it. I knew it surely wouldn't happen to me.

I've got my camera set up in there in case it blows again.
 
I remove all the Krausen 4 or 5 times a day during the fermentation, and have only once had an overnight overflow situation.
 
That's crazy! I recently had an airlock shoot out of a 6.5 gallon carboy, but I've never had the lid pop off of a bucket.
 
Impressive splosion. I've only had my primary lid blow off once, but never had a krausen like that. Mine was a Belgian Golden Strong, blew off the lid 5 times in a night even with a blow-off hose and 2 speakers (the big oldschool wooden ones) stacked on top.
 
After walking back in there and seeing the lid bowed up I decided to scrape off a lot more krausen. I scraped it off down to the beer level so maybe I can leave the house now.

:drunk:


Strange thing is, the bucket right next to it is the exact same thing. Just bubbling. Not even that steady. Weird.
 
Ha ha - nice! Child's play compared to my bucket blow, now that i remenisce. I have that exact bucket, and while primarying a Tripel, the airlock clogged. The bucket was tucked in a corner of my one bedroom loft apartment and the explosion woke me up one night.

The result was krausen 25feet up my living room wall. "You know you're a homebrewer if you've ever used a mop on the wall/cieling". This statement totally applied then. I wish i would have taken pictures then, but i was too busy apologizing to the wife and worrying about my security deposit.

Needless to say, I've used a blowoff ever since.
 
I knew everyone would enjoy the pics. I guess I'm just gonna have to stay home all day and tend to this monster. I just scraped off the krausen for the 3rd time.

This is my first time using Nottingham. Is it usually this violent and abusive?
 
Hey Darkstar79.. I love your avatar..

I have a t-shirt with that picture on that.

Great combination of my two favorite things.. the Dead and the Cubs
 
Wow thats just impressive. I've had the lid blow off before, but never even came close to having that happen with a blow off tube.
 
Those really are incredible pictures. I'm brewing a hefe tonight, and I'm sure I'll be having nightmares of your angry kraeusen... let's just hope I don't have the same results.
 
chefchris said:
I knew everyone would enjoy the pics. I guess I'm just gonna have to stay home all day and tend to this monster.
Click to expand...

Very nice pics indeed.

I use defoamer in the boil, and the kraeusen only climbs about an inch up the bucket. But I just did a 3-gallon extract batch (no defoam) in glass and US-05 threw up an impressive head, half as tall as the beer!
 
Hey, I had one similar to that and it blew the plastic lid right off. My wife even likes to remind me of the beer sud stains on the ceiling. Suds everywhere. As much as I tried to be sanitary during the clean up and continuous removal of the fermentation, I ended up with a gusher infection which resulted in a few bottle bombs. Live and Learn. I now ferment in the garage.
 

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