Rookie mistake/smell.

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Pickettj

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Well, I overfilled my carboy or I have the worlds most violent fermentation. Thank GOD I got home when i did. Instead if mt Vesuvius, I have a Hawaiian volcano. I was worried sick all night then I Come home to a bedroom that smells like bread dough (the smell the smack pack had) and I knew I was in trouble. Open the closet door and I find this. I pulled the airlock and a slow flowing volcano started, thank god it didn't shoot to the ceiling. (Cont.)

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(Cont.) I'm allowing the pressure to subside then replacing the airlock as I don't have a 1" tube to replace it with. I know this is only going to lead to another volcano so carboy is bathtub bound. Up close, the carboy exhaust smells like grapes but when it fills a room, and I mean fills it (the wife will be thrilled!) it smells like dough. I used a 3-piece so the top two pieces just blew off And allowed pressure to escape.
 
Wow that looks awesome lol. Are you using a 5 gal carboy? You can go to Homedepot and buy some cheap tubing for a blow off tube.
 
Many use a blow off tube, instead of an airlock,on beers tgat are actively fermenting. Basically, its inserting a tube into the stopper and running it to a jar filled with water.

Nothing wrong with a big healthy fermentation! :)
 
I ran into a similar problem. I used the siphon hose from my kit and inserted into the airlock to make the blow off hose. Then I put the end of the hose first into a prego jar, which filled, and then into a milk gallon both with vodka as the sanitizer.

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OMG... Thats funny sh*t!
I just started my first batch 3 days ago. I checked it after day 1 and the 3 piece airlock was starting to gush down the side... quickly replaced it with a hose and a bucket of water (rock inside to hold tube under water).
My wife was pissed enough when she came home and the whole house reeked like hops and barley!
I can't imagine if it blew the lid (like yours) or worse, it exploded!!!!!
Looking forward to this crazy ass non $ saving experience!
Cheers :)
 
I ran into a similar problem. I used the siphon hose from my kit and inserted into the airlock to make the blow off hose. Then I put the end of the hose first into a prego jar, which filled, and then into a milk gallon both with vodka as the sanitizer.

View attachment 91055

I'd lower your Prego Jar so that it is lower than the neck of your carboy... just my .02

That way you ensure no air gets in :)
 
I already have. That was my oh crap I need to figure out what to do before this blows up and the wife gets home set up. Fermentation actually slowed down and the air lock is back on.
 
The smell is fine -- it smells like dough because, like rising dough, your beer is full of happy yeasties eating grain.

Like other posters said, run your hose from the stopper to a jar of water or vodka, depending on how much you want to worry about some kind of microbial spore "swimming upstream" to reach your beer, through however many feet of hose actively volcano'ing CO2 in other direction. Even if the hose seems a bit too wide for the stopper, run it and the stopper under hot water for a while, they'll fit just fine.
 
you don't need a 1 inch blowoff. I always do 10 gallon batches and I always use 1/2 inch tubing even at warmer fermentation temps. I don't use airlocks anymore. I usually pitch onto a cake and I don't want to be bothered with checking on my fermentor. Leave it alone for two weeks and bottle it, that's my motto. Not much of a motto, but it's mine :D
 
Here's a video of me searching for the pieces to my airlock...you can also see the insane yeast going psycho... [ame]http://youtu.be/l3a8PtsiE8I[/ame]
 
I'd lower your Prego Jar so that it is lower than the neck of your carboy... just my .02

That way you ensure no air gets in :)

Right, never put your blowoff higher than the carboy. When that carboy starts cooling, at the end of fermentation, the suction can suck that entire prego bottle back.
 
BansheeRider said:
Dude you need to organize your closet ;)

I was waiting for a comment on that. It was last minute. The closet that it was in is now too cold since it's below freezing outside. That closet is in the low 60's right now. It wound up in my clothes closet and those are clothes I don't wear anymore. It seems that it's about time to purge and make a trip to Goodwill!
 
That is one of the hazards of carboy fermentation. The tapered neck makes for a nozzle which will launch the beer out everywhere like a rocket engine. Buckets have more headroom as well. But no harm no foul. Except the cleanup can put you in a rather foul mood.
 
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