I made a cherry ale based on Charlie’s Cherries in the Snow recipe this Saturday. I made a healthy starter and was very pleased when the yeast was bubbling away with about 30 minutes of pitching. Just in case it was a little active I set up a blow out tube and used my largest ale bucket to give it extra space to ferment.
I woke up this morning to a funny sound in the kitchen about 5 AM, grabbing my knife I headed out for the fight of my life only to find the weird noise were my blow out tube about to…well blow out of the bucket. From 5 AM this morning until just now I’ve scooped Krausen out of the bucket every 30 minutes because it was so full it would clog even the blow out tube. This better be a good beer!
Wheat beer yeasts do make a heck of a vigorous krausen. You could always split the batch into another fermentor. Running the ferm cooler in the beginning is also a way to keep the krausen at bay to some extent but you’d better always have nearly as much head space as wort volume for a wheat or Beligan yeast.
Sorry for a bit of a delay, work has a tendency to overcome my free time…
The yeast I was using was an American Ale yeast, but the recipes calls for whole cherries to be used in the last 15 minutes of the boil and everything transferred to the primary. The problem was usually small bits of cherries being stuck in the tube and forming a block over time (made me second think having another steak tonight when I related my blow out tube to my arteries) and I even had a cherry pit get stuck in the tube!