…and I have been homebrewing for 35 years!
As I reported in the What’s Brewing thread, last Friday I brewed 10 gallons of a 1.078 tripel, split between WY3787 and WLP500 in two 6.5 gallon bucket fermenters. I left for hunting camp that afternoon, and came home Sunday afternoon to find both of them fermenting merrily along. The 3787 airlock was bubbling about twice as fast as the 500 airlock. but I didn’t think anything of it. Both thermometer strips were reading 66°F.
Monday afternoon I went into my basement brew room…and found that the 3787 bucket lid had blown completely off! It was lying on the floor about 10 feet from the fermenter, along with the airlock and the gasket seal. Apparently the foaming krausen head had plugged the airlock, and pressure had increased to the point where something had to give, and that was the lid. Usually the airlock will pop off and krausen will come spewing out of the airlock hole. Not this time.
I had sealed the lid on with a rubber mallet, so it was on pretty tight. Funny thing was, once the lid flew off, the yeast quieted down. No fermenting beer topped the bucket. Meanwhile, the krausen in the 500 fermenter is about 2 inches from the lid. It doesn’t look it will make it to the top.
