More learning about beer: exploding fermenters!
Didn't get that bad. But not something I never even came close to seeing making mead. When a beer ferment takes off... it is insane. (PS: I'm loving this).
Anyway, I work from home a lot, and today I'm thankful I do. Noticed the incredibly active ferment this morning. But it hadn't really gotten too insane and the symptoms were the same as my prior ferment which actually ended up slowing down quite quickly. The extent of the activity in the other batch was only bad enough that I had to top up the airlock once a day or so. So nothing too crazy.
After changing out the water a few times today though I started to need to swap other airlocks in as they kept getting gunked up. Then, went to grab lunch, came back and top of the airlock is on top of the fermented and the krausen is leaking out.
Thankfully, just this morning I had been reading about vigorous fermentation and had seen someone convert a 3-piece airlock into a much more fault tolerant device. They called it a blow-off, but it was really just a crude version of the airlock with a larger capacity. Basically, take the top off the airlock, ram a tube in the middle or around the outside of the inner tube of the airlock and feed that into a giant bucket-o-water.
The hose acts the same way the top of the airlock does when submerged in water. CO2 comes out the hose, and into the water and then escapes out of the bucket.
I'm not sure why calling it a blow-off ticks me off so much, I think mainly because to me it is clearly the exact same category of device as the original 3-piece. The only difference is a larger volume of water making it less likely to fill up to the point where it completely blocks the airlock and blows the lid off of the fermenter.
Anyway, ignore the airlock/blow-off rant. Aside from feeling lucky that I was home today to catch this before it became a bigger mess, it was learning experience. Don't take airlocks for granted. I'm almost thinking that I should be using this new approach for all primary fermentation going forward. Seems idiotic to trust things to a less trustworthy device. I can always sanitize the hose at the same time I sanitize the primary fermenter just as I do with my airlocks.
Lastly, concerns on contamination and oxygenation; I wouldn't be too worried. If this ever happens to you, worry more about the mess. Basically, oxygenation ain't happening here. If you have enough CO2 production to blow the lid off of your fermenter or even off of your airlock, any dead space in that bucket is filled with CO2. CO2 is heavier than air, so no significant portion is getting in at this stage of the game. If it were just getting started, or fermentation were slowing down you'd be in a worse spot as far as O2 goes.
Contamination? Sure, slightly more realistic, but anything that happens between the moment you spotted the issue and resolved it is done. In most cases, unless left unattended for a long time, there is good chance you're safe. Best thing to do is still to fix the rig, wait out fermentation to stop and give it a taste test. If it is clearly sporting some massively "not beer" flavor... dump it and learn from the mistake. I have.
But the true moral of this post for me was... this was exciting. This is the first time I've had a potentially serious problem on my hands with any sort of brewing and the first time I got to hack together a solution, even if it was as quick as cutting off a small length of hose, ramming one end in the bottom of the airlock and the other in a cleaned out 2L pop bottle.
Anyway, I work from home a lot, and today I'm thankful I do. Noticed the incredibly active ferment this morning. But it hadn't really gotten too insane and the symptoms were the same as my prior ferment which actually ended up slowing down quite quickly. The extent of the activity in the other batch was only bad enough that I had to top up the airlock once a day or so. So nothing too crazy.
After changing out the water a few times today though I started to need to swap other airlocks in as they kept getting gunked up. Then, went to grab lunch, came back and top of the airlock is on top of the fermented and the krausen is leaking out.
Thankfully, just this morning I had been reading about vigorous fermentation and had seen someone convert a 3-piece airlock into a much more fault tolerant device. They called it a blow-off, but it was really just a crude version of the airlock with a larger capacity. Basically, take the top off the airlock, ram a tube in the middle or around the outside of the inner tube of the airlock and feed that into a giant bucket-o-water.
The hose acts the same way the top of the airlock does when submerged in water. CO2 comes out the hose, and into the water and then escapes out of the bucket.
I'm not sure why calling it a blow-off ticks me off so much, I think mainly because to me it is clearly the exact same category of device as the original 3-piece. The only difference is a larger volume of water making it less likely to fill up to the point where it completely blocks the airlock and blows the lid off of the fermenter.
Anyway, ignore the airlock/blow-off rant. Aside from feeling lucky that I was home today to catch this before it became a bigger mess, it was learning experience. Don't take airlocks for granted. I'm almost thinking that I should be using this new approach for all primary fermentation going forward. Seems idiotic to trust things to a less trustworthy device. I can always sanitize the hose at the same time I sanitize the primary fermenter just as I do with my airlocks.
Lastly, concerns on contamination and oxygenation; I wouldn't be too worried. If this ever happens to you, worry more about the mess. Basically, oxygenation ain't happening here. If you have enough CO2 production to blow the lid off of your fermenter or even off of your airlock, any dead space in that bucket is filled with CO2. CO2 is heavier than air, so no significant portion is getting in at this stage of the game. If it were just getting started, or fermentation were slowing down you'd be in a worse spot as far as O2 goes.
Contamination? Sure, slightly more realistic, but anything that happens between the moment you spotted the issue and resolved it is done. In most cases, unless left unattended for a long time, there is good chance you're safe. Best thing to do is still to fix the rig, wait out fermentation to stop and give it a taste test. If it is clearly sporting some massively "not beer" flavor... dump it and learn from the mistake. I have.
But the true moral of this post for me was... this was exciting. This is the first time I've had a potentially serious problem on my hands with any sort of brewing and the first time I got to hack together a solution, even if it was as quick as cutting off a small length of hose, ramming one end in the bottom of the airlock and the other in a cleaned out 2L pop bottle.
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