Primary lid blew off

[dbabz]

I am on my second batch and had my Ale Pale tucked nicely away in a closet. I left for the evening and came home to discover the lid blown off and a wonderful mess in my closet. I returned the lid and airlock and am hoping for the best.

Should I continue the fermentation and just pray it isn't contaminated? Has this happened to anyone out there before, if so what were the results?

Thanks!

 

[TipsyDragon]

your beer is most likely fine. i hope you cleaned out and sanitized the airlock and lid before putting it back on. and gave the lid a few good whacks with a mallet to teach it a lesson.

 

[whatisitgoodfor]

Blowouts happen.

If you're using a three piece airlock, you can take some tubing and run it from the center post in the airlock into a jar of sanitizer to make a blow off tube.

If it blows off again after that you will need to cover it with foil or just rest the lid on the bucket till the ferment settles down.

As far as whether you picked up an infection or not, if there's so much gas moving out of the wort that it blew the lid off the bucket, the odds of anything else coming into the bucket are pretty close to nil.

 

[mc_eric]

I've had this happen to me 3 or 4 times, and none of those batches got infected. Hopefully you cleaned and sanitized the lid & airlock before replacing, but even if you didn't, chances are you're ok.

The first beer I ever brewed blew the lid off 3 times! the first 2 times, i re-sanitized the lid and airlock and put them back on. But apparently the lid blew again while i was sleeping. My roommate saw the lid on the floor the next morning, and put it back on without sanitizing it. no liquid in the airlock either.

The beer turned out fine, great actually. So, chances are, you're fine.

 

[rico567]

Only had a lid blow off once.....and it was in the context of a flood, with a foot of water in our basement, so I was a bit preoccupied. I cleaned and re-sanitized the lid & airlock, & put everything back together. 45 minutes later, it did the same thing. I finally figured out that the flood waters coming into the basement had raised the ambient temperature so much (It was early June) that the fermentation was just going out of control. This was an Imperial Stout, so it was pretty impressive. I re-sanitized again, but put the airlock aside, soaked a sponge in Star San and set it over the hole. When things settled down, I put the airlock back in. I call that batch the "flood stout," and, strangely or not, it's great.

 

[CiscoKid]

Hey, welcome to the party! This is one of the few hobbies where you get the mop your ceiling every now and then. I had a trippel that blew a stopper out of a better bottle after the blowoff tube got clogged. The beer turned out awesome.

 

[Sacdan]

Pictures man. We need Pictures.

 

[josiahcox]

2nd that! Always take pictures! I can only get half a woodie without em.

 

[humann_brewing]

2nd that! Always take pictures! I can only get half a woodie without em.

ok, that didn't need to written for all to see

 

[dbabz]

Thanks for all the good info coming back. Definitely learned a few lessons on this one. No more fermentation in the closet and a little weight was added to the top. I'm still in a good strong fermentation.

I'll start taking more pictures, my roommate thought someone had been murdered in my closet.

 

[whatisitgoodfor]

If you add a weight on top of the lid all that means is that it will be your airlock rocketing out of the grommet and you'll have a really neat looking pattern on the ceiling from the fountain of krausen that comes shooting out of the hole.

A blow off tube is the way to go if you suspect you're gonna have too much krausen.