Will this be OK?

[brandona33]

My latest brew is in the Primary since Wednesday 2/27 and was bubbling away nicely. This morning I woke to see the foam from the surface had worked up into my airlock, stopping the bubbling, and then seeped up through the hole in the lid for the airlock. After inspecting the area, I saw the grommit was bad and it wasn't a tight seal. Was this the culprit?

I pulled the airlock out, careful not to have the water in it wash into the brew, then pulled the lid off. washed all parts thoroughly, sanitized and put back together with a new grommit. Will being exposed to oxygen do anything, and should I be concerned?

Thanks

 

[Revvy]

No...relax...Happens to all of us at one time or another.

You did something few people think about doing...you actaully re cleaned and sanitized everything...GOOD JOB!!!

 

[david_42]

No problem. The CO2 in the fermenter prevents any oxygen exposure.

 

[brandona33]

No...relax...Happens to all of us at one time or another.

You did something few people think about doing...you actaully re cleaned and sanitized everything...GOOD JOB!!!

Thanks for the quick reply. My first couple batches were cook, store, bottle, enjoy...no problems. This was my first troubleshoot.

 

[Beerthoven]

My latest brew is in the Primary since Wednesday 2/27 and was bubbling away nicely. This morning I woke to see the foam from the surface had worked up into my airlock, stopping the bubbling, and then seeped up through the hole in the lid for the airlock. After inspecting the area, I saw the grommit was bad and it wasn't a tight seal. Was this the culprit?

I pulled the airlock out, careful not to have the water in it wash into the brew, then pulled the lid off. washed all parts thoroughly, sanitized and put back together with a new grommit. Will being exposed to oxygen do anything, and should I be concerned?

Thanks

Your beer will be fine. This is a common occurance. It sounds like fermentation was still quite active. The krausen and CO2 offgassing should prevent anything from reaching the beer. Any exposure to the air was minimal and shouldn't have any impact. A blow off tube could prevent this in the future.

 

[brandona33]

Your beer will be fine. This is a common occurance. It sounds like fermentation was still quite active. The krausen and CO2 offgassing should prevent anything from reaching the beer. Any exposure to the air was minimal and shouldn't have any impact. A blow off tube could prevent this in the future.

Blow off tube instead of airlock? The tubes I've seen look like they have a larger diameter than the hole in the ale pail lid pre-drilled for the airlock. Do I need to drill a new hole, or buy a different lid?

 

[Evan]

blow off tubs are used when using carboys. the plastic buckets have alot more room inside for the krausen, but it can still come up if the beer is pretty big. alot of people will use carboys for primary and for those you really should use a blow off tube, usually a bigger carboy, like 6 or 6.5 gal.

 

[jvh261]

Its happened to all of us. I've switched to a blowoff tube for at least the first couple of days. If I leave it in primary bucket for more than a week, I'll just replace the blowff with airlock after its stopped bubbling.

 

[brandona33]

I did add more water than usual because I was tired of ending up with 4 gal after all the rackings and whatnot. Maybe next time I will use a blow off or get a bigger carboy to use as a primary and run a blow off. Thanks for all the great advice everyone!

 

[Revvy]

Blow off tube instead of airlock? The tubes I've seen look like they have a larger diameter than the hole in the ale pail lid pre-drilled for the airlock. Do I need to drill a new hole, or buy a different lid?

Sometimes you will need a blowoff tube on an alepail, it's easy to rig up. You don't need to do anything to your lid...you just afix a piece of tubing to the center post on the airlock.

For my currently fermenting brew in a 6.5 gallon bucket I needed to use a blowoff because I was pitching onto a yeastcake. I'm really glad I did. Lots of stuff blowing through it. If you have a lot of fermentables, or are using fruit in the primary it is pretty smart to do it ahead of time.

A good thing to do is to saw off the crosshatched plastic at the bottom of the airloc...so stuff won't get stuck there.

I cleaned out the collection vessel that my blowoff tube has been sitting in. I had started with a quart of normal dilution iodophor. After 48 hours of good blow off I had a half gallon of diluted ale in there. What was even more surprising was the quarter inch of really clean looking yeast at the bottom of the container.