Surprising blow out!

[Ryue]

Hey ya'll, sitting on the ferry heading to work, thought I'd share a little.

Saturday I started a 5 gallon batch of my Cinnamon Elderberry mead, let it get going, then, starting monday night planned on stirring/degassing every night for the first week or two. Monday night I gave it a good stir, placed the airlock back in and went to bed. Last night I got home, went to stir it again, and was greated by the wonderful smell of the spare bathroom being cover in must...! I have had a bit of over flow in the past, but never explosive, it made it all the way to the ceiling!
Has anyone else had this happen? I thing the remnants of the berries cloged the air holes at the top of the airlock and locked in all the pressure.

 

[passedpawn]

Too much shampoo obviously

Anyhoo, silver lining is the mess was nicely contained in that tub. I'm surprised that mead can blow off. I made a couple and don't remember any krausen at all. Guess the fruit does that.

 

[Ryue]

Yeah, I have only done a few batches, but didn't expect that lol. But I had a SG of 1.158 and pitched 5 packs of Red Star Premier Blanc yeast and 5 grams of Fermaid K. I wanted to make sure that I pitched enough yeastees with such a high SG, since my one gallon batch took 3 days to get going with just one pack. Guess I overdid it?

 

[bernardsmith]

Too late to lock the gate after the horses have bolted but IMO it is always best to use a bucket as your primary and to loosely cover the bucket with a towel or just by placing the lid atop the bucket (no need to seal the bucket). There is then no narrow neck to rifle the liquid and no gas held under pressure (although , of course, when you ferment fruit you do need to make sure that no solid cap forms on the top - that WILL prevent CO2 from being released in a rather more gentle and leisurely manner).