What would you do?

[Doghouse]

I'd like some opinions on what I should do with my Cherry Fever Stout that turned into a Cherry Bomb Stout. I brewed Papazian's Cherry fever stout yesterday. Into the fermentor it went and this morning I had bits of cherry and wort spackled onto my ceiling and walls in my basement. I figure I lost almost a gallon out of the fermentor. A bit of cherry clogged the airlock and she blew! I found the airlock in three pieces. It must have hit the ceiling pretty hard.
I put a new airlock on and it is behaving for now. When I rack into secondary, should I top it up to five gallons or let it be at ~4 gallons. Thanks in advance.

Ed

 

[Frank-Likes-Beer]

I'd just let it at the 4 gallons.

...and get a blow off tube.

 

[CaptKiRkLeS]

I'd let it me. The risk of contamination is high. I had my Dunkelweizen spew all over and lost almost a gallon. I just let it go. You wont get as many bottles but that's better than risking ruining the enitre batch.

 

[IrregularPulse]

Let it be, you lost a gallon of beer, no point in watering down the remaining 4.

 

[dave5155]

Yeah, like the above poster stated. leave it. you'll only end up diluting it and it won't taste the way it should.

 

[winstonofbeer]

+1 on investing on a blow off tube.
Was in your same shoes once.....Then SWMBO yelled at me..... Had a blow off tube ever since.

 

[Doghouse]

Thanks for the advice. I'll keep it as is.

I think a blow off tube would have clogged too. I'll invest in a 7.9 gal fermentation bucket. That'll give me enough head space for those big foaming brews.

 

[leapdog]

buy the blow-off that just sticks right into the top of the carboy... no stopper. it should be thick enough to handle just about anything. couple brews ago i had enough yeast and beer in the blowoff that the krausen in my blowoff collection fell and i knew it had fallen in the beer. crazy stuff.