Woke Up to this....

[fayderek14]

Came home last night to my beer coming up through the airlock. I ran out quickly to grab tubing to make a blow off. I woke up this morning and the blowoff tube literally blew off the carboy and there were chunks of hops and what not all over the garage. Also as you can see in the picture it looks like some of the beer pour out of the car boy. Besides the loss of beer, is this ok? Will the beer be ok?

 

[Hammy71]

It'll probably be fine. It's blowing stuff out, so hopefully nothing got in. Rig up the blow off tube and try again.

 

[fayderek14]

Ya I set it back up. We'll see how it goes. Just sucks. Seems like I lost about 1 or 2 gallons.....

 

[feinbera]

Wow, epic fermentation!

The beer that's still in the carboy will be fine; think about how much force it takes to dislodge the blow-off tube and send that much beer and krausen out after it; no infecting organisms are going to be able to "swim upstream" against that kind of out-flowing CO2.

Bummer about the spilled beer, though.

 

[JLem]

Probably obvious now, but from the picture it looks like you have too small a carboy for the volume of beer - especially if you think you lost 1-2 gallons.. Even with a blowoff setup, you'll want more headspace next time so brew a smaller batch or get a bigger fermenter.

 

[fayderek14]

Ya we forced 5 gallons into a 5 gallon car boy..... dumb move on my part.

 

[HokieHT07]

Your beer should be fine. This has happened to me two or three times. I began using a hop spider when boiling my hops. Using a spider or bagging your hops will help prevent these incidents. The times it happened to me it was because of hops and other junk blocking the krausen from blowing off.

 

[fayderek14]

It seems like the fermentation has slowed. Nothing is coming through the blow off tube.

 

[LabRatBrewer]

Keep a long straw near the carboy for the spilled beer.

 

[virginiawolf]

I had that happen more than once. It never messed up the batch but it was frustrating. The worst was when I made a raspberry beer. If the carboy was only half full I still don't think that it would have been enough headspace. It went crazy. I started buying 6 gallon carboys after a while instead of the 5 gallon ones so that I had more room. You could split the batch into two next time perhaps. Good Luck!!!!

 

[JLem]

Ya we forced 5 gallons into a 5 gallon car boy..... dumb move on my part.

You should have at least a gallon to a gallon and a half of headspace - so you'll need a 6 or a 6.5 gallon carboy for 5 gallons of beer. Or you sould split it between two 5 gallon carboys.

 

[southfieldbrewer]

What was your fermenting temperature? I use a 6 1/2 gallon Carboy as a fermentor and had to use a blow off tube on my first two batches because the temps were in the 73'/74' range. I just brewed my second batch and focused on fermenting in the 68' range and had a normal krausen and no blow off needed.

 

[glenn514]

If you are using the base of a three-piece airlock to attach the blow-off tubing, make certain that you break off the four little plastic pieces at the bottom of the base. All kinds of beer gunk can get caught on those little cross-pieces and clog up the airlock base, totally defeating the use of a blow-off tube.

glenn514

 

[IslandLizard]

If you are using the base of a three-piece airlock to attach the blow-off tubing, make certain that you break off the four little plastic pieces at the bottom of the base. All kinds of beer gunk can get caught on those little cross-pieces and clog up the airlock base, totally defeating the use of a blow-off tube.

glenn514

+1
Take a hack saw and cut 1/8" off the bottom of those airlocks, then sand smooth. Or use a disk grinder or belt sander to grind it off. You want the leftover tube to be smooth so you can clean and sanitize it.