Krausen in the airlock

[rjanson]

I have a 3 piece plastic airlock. I filled to the fill line with star-san solution and placed in the rubber stopper on top of the carboy.

I aerated the wort for 5 minutes with a stone, and gave it an additional shake for good measure before adding yeast (White Labs WLP001).

I had a nice active fermentation going by the next morning, but on day two I found the krausen had risen high enough to get into the airlock. The krausen has receded fairly substantially from that point, but still a healthy bubbling going on.

Aside from replacing the airlock with fresh one with new solution, is there anything I can/should do? Am I in trouble with this batch?

It's a 6.5 gallon carboy, filled to the 5 gallon line with wort.

 

[TexasDroughtBrewery]

The batch is fine...you actually got lucky it didn't blow off.

What you can do different...is use a blow off tube so this dosen't happen again and make a huge mess.

Again...the beer is fine.

 

[rjanson]

The batch is fine...you actually got lucky it didn't blow off.

What you can do different...is use a blow off tube so this dosen't happen again and make a huge mess.

Again...the beer is fine.

Awesome, thanks for the quick reply. I'll definitely add the blow off tube to the collection of gear.

 

[flars]

Some yeasts like WY 3068 produce a much higher krausen than other ale yeasts. High fermentation temperatures will also produce an excessive krausen when fermentation temperatures are not controlled.

Blow off tubes for the first few days are just required for some yeasts when there is reasonable room in the fermentor for the typical krausen of an ale yeast. Controlling the fermentation temperature will also tame the krausen height.

 

[Junk-Man]

I've had krausen in the airlock a tonne of times and it nver did a thing to my beer. I've even left it like that for the duration and had no issues.

 

[unionrdr]

I prefer a blow off rig, unless I'm making 5 gallons in the Cooper's Micro Brew FV, then it'll have plenty of krausen room. And by a handful of airlocks, they're cheap. I have at least two for each fermenter. Those half gallon plastic vodka jugs from the grocery store stuff are perfect blow off jugs. I use 3/8" ID tubing with an airlock stem cut off an old airlock inserted in one end. This makes it easy to insert quickly into the typical airlock grommet. Then the other end in the jug 1/3 full of Starsan, or water with a little Starsan in it. It cuts the foaming a bit as it bubbles madly.

 

[TexasDroughtBrewery]

Yeah, you will learn after your first real blow off flirting with the line isn't worth it...at all...and if you have a wife...its really not worth. Trust me guys.

 

[FVillatoro]

Ever since I started making yeast starters and re-using yeast I stopped using airlocks because my fermentations (although temperature controller), almost always build a huge krusen and ends up being ejected from a blow-off tube into star-san.

I do have 2 airlocks for when the beer is done fermenting and I want to keep it at room temp for conditioning.