I have only brewed 6 times. My second brew was a Lagunita Sumpin Sumpin clone. The morning after in my 6.5 primary bucket, the airlock had clogged up and the bucket was bulging and some wort had blown past airlock. The beer was good though! So I decided to do another this past weekend. This time I put it in 6.5 carboy. When I just got home a little bit ago, same thing although this time airlock had not clogged and it was just spewing wort out which had created a bit of mess in chest freezer I am running at 68.
I have brewed a couple other ipas and never had one do this.
Any suggestions?
Also, cleaned it all up and put fresh air lock. Its already starting to fizz out. Anything I can do to stop it?
Yes definetly use a blow off for the first few day. Take a 3pc air lock and fit a piece of tubing into the inside then have the tubing go into a container of sanitizer. I cut the bottom of the air lock slightly so it’s a solid opening. Work great
Is your probe for the temp controller for your freezer in a thermal well going into the carboy or is it just sitting out in the freezer?
If it’s not internal to the carboy then your freezer is at 68 not the fermenting wort.
Do you have one of those LCD stick on thermometers on your carboy I’d be interested to know the temperature that it says that it’s at I’m wondering if it’s higher much higher than 68
A little more headspace wouldn’t hurt either, assuming you’re brewing 5 gallon batches. These buckets will contain your krausen on a 5 gallon batch :
Also, depending of course on what you’re brewing, fermenting a few degreees cooler ( like 63-65F) would slow the vigor of the fermentation as well. Warmer = more vigorous fermentation.
OG on this one was 1.081. The day before I brew up a starter for the yeast. I have the controller probe in a gallon of water, no thermowell. Next time I will try the blow off tube.
Second problem is apparently when I cleaning out the freezer, somehow it got unplugged from controller and when I checked this morning the internal of freezer was 80! ugh. Hope beer isnt ruined.
Active fermentation will runs warmer than your ambient temp. Temperature control is a very good thing to do. I would either attach your temp controller to the side of your FV or at a minimum turn in down to around 64-65 for the few days of active fermentation. Then you can slowly raise the temp to help they yeast finish to clean things up.
thanks all. I have now attached probe against primary. I was ready to attach a blow off tube but wort has seemed to settle down. Hopefully the 80 degrees overnight didnt kill it.
80 is pretty warm. You will only know when you taste it…Ruined? Probably not but it might not be your best beer ever. Attaching the probe to the side is key because you need to control the temp of the fermentation which heats up. Water does not. I like to put a little bubble wrap or some folded paper towels over the probe and tape that onto the fermentor as well. That way you will have a little barrier between the carboy and ambient temps. I rarely use a blow off because I’m putting exactly 5 gallons of wort into a 6.5 gallon carboy but when I do need to, I’ve used the method mentioned above and it works perfectly. Then just go back to the airlock once things have settled down a little bit.
Thanks again everyone. I got the tubing to do a blow off but realized there is only an inch of space between top of airlock and freezer top so when I put tube on, it gets squished. Anyone think of something that would connect to nipple inside airlock that is a 90 and then I could attach my hose to that? The whole thing has calmed down now but I want to be ready for next time.
Oh and I now have the temp probe against carboy with some insulation and taped on.
Get a 90* elbow with barbs on both ends, I’m guessing 3/8". I have a similar situation with my lager fridge, the fermenter just barely squeezes in under the freezer enclosure with a shorty 90*.