Fermentation Gone Wild

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Jim W
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Fermentation Gone Wild

Post by Jim W » Mon Apr 02, 2007 9:25 am

Brewed a batch of Honey Wheat this weekend. Decided to try a Munton's no boil can kit, for the heck of it.
We used 2 lbs Wheat DME.
1# honey. A tad too much, maybe by a half pound. But CO-OP man thought it would be OK.
Liquid Hefewiezen yeast from CO-OP.
Fermented at 78 degrees for first 8 hours or so.
Problem. The thing went wild. Tried to blow the lid off of the bucket. 15 hours into it, I happened to walk by and heard the lid whistling as it was under so much pressure. I removed the airlock and fitted another one with a blow off tube and it is blowing into a bucket. The thing sounded like someone was throwing up in a closet. Don't ask how I know what this sounds like. I'll change the blow off set up tonight and go back to the regular airlock.
Any ideas why we got a free episode of Spring Break Yeast's Go Wild (video for sale for $9.99) ?
Mainly to prevent this from occuring when I am not home and my wife shutting down our still youthful brewing operation.

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Justin Rumbach
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Post by Justin Rumbach » Tue Apr 03, 2007 9:35 am

My last cream stout fermented so vigourously that it clogged the airlock and blew sticky chunks of malty goodness all over the inside of my refridgerator. I was fermenting in the low 60s with Safale 04. Blowoff tubes from here on out for me!
For everyone I haven't met, I used to live in Evansville and was a member of OVHA. After moving home to Jasper, and missing having good friends to brew with, I decided to try to start my own club. I am happy to say that I have been the president of the Dubois County Suds Club since 2006 (although I still miss my OVHA buddies)!

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Jim W
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Post by Jim W » Tue Apr 03, 2007 3:34 pm

MMMmmm Malty Goodness.
I guess you are right, we will just start the process with a blowoff tube, and switch to the airlock when it settles. That is what happened with us, the airlock inlet points clogged with 'malty goodness' and went downhill from there.

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Chris Alvey
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Post by Chris Alvey » Tue Apr 03, 2007 6:25 pm

Wheat fermentations always spew a lot of stuff. I've taken to just using blowoff tubes the entire time for my beers now.

78 is pretty high too - if you can get it around 68 to 70 or so that would help, and will also produce a cleaner-tasting beer.

There is some foam control liquid that I use and it seems to help some as well with no ill effects to the beer. Example : http://morebeer.com/browse.html?PHPSESS ... mit=Search

STiKY
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Post by STiKY » Wed Apr 18, 2007 4:16 pm

I've noticed that even when there is alot of foam it's not a problem when brewing 5 gallons in a 6 gallon container. Definitly need a blow off tube if fermenting 5 gallons in a 5 gallon glass carboy.

Buddy's closet looked like someone murdered a 6 pack of guinness after one such air lock clogging episode.

-peace
-JROD
Primary: Nada
Secondary: Honey Lager
Bottle Conditioning: Nada
Aging in the Closet: Belgian Strong Ale, Dog Fish Head World Wide Stout
In fridge: Bell's Hopslam, Great Lakes Holy Moses, Stella

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Jim W
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Post by Jim W » Wed Apr 18, 2007 5:16 pm

POST MORTUM
Alas, he screamed in terror "The batch is bad, the batch is bad".
"Aaaarrgghh, we've lost a whole batch of beer".
Something wild :shock: must have gotten in there. It was still fermenting after 2 weeks, when we tried to bottle last weekend. Heavy sulfur smell, and we were afraid to even try and bottle it.
This was certainly a hard lesson. To pour 5 gal of beer, into the septic system, even if it was bad, just seemed so inhuman.

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