Hello brewing community. Working on my first batch (a belgian tripel), and it seems to be going smoothly. Did a lot of reading first before I started, made sure to get all the basics right, (as far as I know anyway). I was meticulous about sanitizing everything, waited for the hot break before adding hops, used a wyeast trappist strain in a smack pack and watched it expand nicely before I started brewing, cooled the wort down to 70 before pitching the yeast, and have put the fermentor in a room that remains a constant 70 degrees, (and I leave my thermostat on the floor immediately next to the fermentor and have checked it several times during the day and night). If what I'm reading is correct the 3 biggest keys to good brewing are sanitation, using a yeast starter, and temperature so those are the things I'm primarily concerned with.
This afternoon, I discovered my airlock was no longer full of water but full of a thick, brownish liquid. It was still bubbling, but it appeared to be filling up and in fact some liquid had seeped out onto the top of the fermentor. I decided to follow the rule of "don't panic newbie" when something unexpected occurs and instead decided to think about the situation. Obviously, the yeast is working, perhaps working overtime due to the amount of fermentables in there (9lbs of malt extract altogether, plus a pound of candi sugar and 8 oz. of maltodextrin), and air is being kept out of the wort. So, inside the bucket everything should be fine. I decided that the brownish liquid in the airlock must be a combination of the water that was already in there and some foam that had pushed itself up into the airlock. I wasn't sure if it would make any difference or not to the brew, but it did appear that the CO2 bubbles were coming a little slower and had a little more trouble working through the brownish liquid. I check a few forums and didn't find any real info about this. The closest I found was a post from someone mentioning that they finally were getting sediment in their airlock from a brew, (they seemed happy about it), and it occurred to me that this is probably the reason the bubbles were coming out slower. I worried that if too much sediment builds up in there, this could seal it shut and perhaps lead to an explosion which would destroy my brew, my fermentor, perhaps the airlock, my carpet, and make a huge mess. I figured that the risks of exposing the brew to the air for a few seconds while I pulled out the airlock, cleaned and sanitized, and then returned it, were pretty minimal. So I did so and indeed it was sediment that was building up in the airlock.
So this was an hour and 45 minutes ago, and already my airlock is full of this brownish liquid again, and it is once again leaking on top of my fermentor. Does anyone have any recommendations for what, if anything, I should do about it?
This afternoon, I discovered my airlock was no longer full of water but full of a thick, brownish liquid. It was still bubbling, but it appeared to be filling up and in fact some liquid had seeped out onto the top of the fermentor. I decided to follow the rule of "don't panic newbie" when something unexpected occurs and instead decided to think about the situation. Obviously, the yeast is working, perhaps working overtime due to the amount of fermentables in there (9lbs of malt extract altogether, plus a pound of candi sugar and 8 oz. of maltodextrin), and air is being kept out of the wort. So, inside the bucket everything should be fine. I decided that the brownish liquid in the airlock must be a combination of the water that was already in there and some foam that had pushed itself up into the airlock. I wasn't sure if it would make any difference or not to the brew, but it did appear that the CO2 bubbles were coming a little slower and had a little more trouble working through the brownish liquid. I check a few forums and didn't find any real info about this. The closest I found was a post from someone mentioning that they finally were getting sediment in their airlock from a brew, (they seemed happy about it), and it occurred to me that this is probably the reason the bubbles were coming out slower. I worried that if too much sediment builds up in there, this could seal it shut and perhaps lead to an explosion which would destroy my brew, my fermentor, perhaps the airlock, my carpet, and make a huge mess. I figured that the risks of exposing the brew to the air for a few seconds while I pulled out the airlock, cleaned and sanitized, and then returned it, were pretty minimal. So I did so and indeed it was sediment that was building up in the airlock.
So this was an hour and 45 minutes ago, and already my airlock is full of this brownish liquid again, and it is once again leaking on top of my fermentor. Does anyone have any recommendations for what, if anything, I should do about it?
