Holy Crap!

BrewHound · Post by **BrewHound** » Mon Apr 19, 2010 1:45 pm

Ok, so I brewed my American Brown ale yesterday. put into the fermentors and oxygenated for 2 minutes, then pitched a 1 liter starter into each pale.

I put lids on the pales and airlocks. I figured that this was not an extremely big beer and an airlock would do the trick. Fermentation started up within about 4 hours.

So I went down stairs this morning to roll smokes for the day as I usually do. Figured I would peak in and watch the bubbles for a second. When I opened the door. The lid was sitting about 10 foot away from the pale. Nice huh. Other pale had a bulge in it. But airlock was bubbling away. I sanitized the airlock and lid again and put back on, it started to bubble through the lock. Went upstairs and was finishing up my tasks before going to work. Boom, I knew exactly what this was. Went downstairs and again lid was 10 feet away from the ferementer. As I did not have the right size tubing for a blow off tube. I once again sanitized the lid and air lock. Went to work. Came home at lunch after doing some research on work arounds for blow off tubing. BOTH LIDS WERE ON THE GROUND. Sanitizied everything again, rigged up some blow off tubes and away they went. They were still freaking out when I left.

Moral of the story, guys, ditch the air locks and move to blow off tubes. You never know when you are going to get really active fermentations that are beyond the capabilities of an air lock. This was an American brown ale, starting grav of 1.059 feremented with WLP013 London Ale yeast. Who would have thought this would happen. Hopefully the batch is still good as it was very activity going and I discovered this quite quickly.

Mr T · Post by **Mr T** » Mon Apr 19, 2010 2:16 pm

Cj.. When I get super strong ferms I just open ferment for about a day or so. Beer should be just fine with that much co2 coming off that thing. Had no problems with this tactic.

From: BrewHound <brew-equipment@crbeernuts.org>
Sent: Monday, April 19, 2010 2:45 PM
To: brew-equipment@crbeernuts.org
Subject: Holy Crap!

Ok, so I brewed my American Brown ale yesterday. put into the fermentors and oxygenated for 2 minutes, then pitched a 1 liter starter into each pale.

I put lids on the pales and airlocks. I figured that this was not an extremely big beer and an airlock would do the trick. Fermentation started up within about 4 hours.

So I went down stairs this morning to roll smokes for the day as I usually do. Figured I would peak in and watch the bubbles for a second. When I opened the door. The lid was sitting about 10 foot away from the pale. Nice huh. Other pale had a bulge in it. But airlock was bubbling away. I sanitized the airlock and lid again and put back on, it started to bubble through the lock. Went upstairs and was finishing up my tasks before going to work. Boom, I knew exactly what this was. Went downstairs and again lid was 10 feet away from the ferementer. As I did not have the right size tubing for a blow off tube. I once again sanitized the lid and air lock. Went to work. Came home at lunch after doing some research on work arounds for blow off tubing. BOTH LIDS WERE ON THE GROUND. Sanitizied everything again, rigged up some blow off tubes and away they went. They were still freaking out when I left.

Moral of the story, guys, ditch the air locks and move to blow off tubes. You never know when you are going to get really active fermentations that are beyond the capabilities of an air lock. This was an American brown ale, starting grav of 1.059 feremented with WLP013 London Ale yeast. Who would have thought this would happen. Hopefully the batch is still good as it was very activity going and I discovered this quite quickly.

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Matt F · Post by **Matt F** » Mon Apr 19, 2010 8:08 pm

It will be all good. A lot of folks do open ferments when it is active. I know I have blown a few air locks. The evidence is all over the walls in the brewery.

BrewHound · Post by **BrewHound** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 8:59 am

Matt F wrote:It will be all good. A lot of folks do open ferments when it is active. I know I have blown a few air locks. The evidence is all over the walls in the brewery.

Oh yeah, didn't mention the beer all over the walls that I have to clean up now.

Matt F · Post by **Matt F** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 9:26 am

I like to just leave mine on the walls. Shows your battle scars.

BrewHound · Post by **BrewHound** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 9:43 am

Matt F wrote:I like to just leave mine on the walls. Shows your battle scars.

No the battle scars come in when the wife sees the walls!

8 - (

bkanderson · Post by **bkanderson** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 3:32 pm

I usually put a sanitized heavy glass over the hole where the airlock goes. It will keep things out and let whatever needs to come out come out.