My first 'Sploded Bucket!

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JimTheHick

JimTheHick

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That damn murphy and his law. Brewed a tripel on Friday, pitched about 9pm - bubbling nicely but by no means furiously Saturday morning. All good, had to leave town for 28 hours to visit a buddy getting deployed. Came downstairs to check the beer and the smell of yeast in the air immediately concerns me. Yup, it blew.

Was a pretty minor explosion really. No ceiling action even. Thank goodness I repurposed this shower!

From reading all the posts in here I'm going to just seal 'er back up and soldier on. Cheers!

image-389848345.jpg
 
Even my small starters do a sequel of The Blob with ales in the 1.044-1.050 range. A blow off is the only way to go for the first couple of days. Good thing during that heat wave...
 
unionrdr said:
Even my small starters do a sequel of The Blob with ales in the 1.044-1.050 range. A blow off is the only way to go for the first couple of days. Good thing during that heat wave...
Click to expand...

This was a 1.080 tripel ipa that I let rise to 75 for esters. The blowoff was on place but got clogged by the only whole leaf hop piece that didn't get strained out. Oh well!

I ended up putting two 500 ml starters plus a 1/4 cup of yeast cake as insurance as that amount of starter seemed too little.
 
Another reason that I use hop sacks. The whole leaf Cascade I used in my IPA had to be put in a grain sack. Lots of bulk on the same amount of whole leaf. The sacks & strainer did the job for me.
 
unionrdr said:
Even my small starters do a sequel of The Blob with ales in the 1.044-1.050 range. A blow off is the only way to go for the first couple of days. Good thing during that heat wave...
Click to expand...

Had a close call this morning.... 80+ hours into fermenting my IPA the bubbling in my blowoff bucket had completely stopped. Thought it was a little weird since it was still going nuts last night. I pushed on the lid firmly to see if it was clogged, something broke loose and a ton of co2 came bubbling out, followed by some krausen.

Moral of the story: maybe 2 days of using a blowoff tube is not enough
 
Sometimes it is,but not on my IPA either. Just leave it till you see one day where it doesn't rip even a little one once. Then you can re-install the airlock. I've had to leave the blow off on for 3-4 days. I also keep an eye on lids & stuff without really having to think about it.
 
Update:

This beer turned out really awesome. I used some Nelson and motueka dry hop and it's fantastic.
 
Is there anyway one can determine which batch or type of brew would create enough krausen to potentially blow the lid off if one were using an air lock?

I cant remember how many beers ive made, atleast over a dozen, and only one of those beers (cream ale) clogged my air lock and blew the lid off. All the rest ive made from wheats to lagers never once rose enough to make me use a blow off tube.
 
brewd00d said:
Is there anyway one can determine which batch or type of brew would create enough krausen to potentially blow the lid off if one were using an air lock?

I cant remember how many beers ive made, atleast over a dozen, and only one of those beers (cream ale) clogged my air lock and blew the lid off. All the rest ive made from wheats to lagers never once rose enough to make me use a blow off tube.
Click to expand...

Beware the Belgians. Even my starters krausen like crazy.

But really anything can blow. W/O a blowoff, a small piece of crude can block your airlock and then it's BOOMTIME
 
this is one of my biggest fears. i currently live with my sister and brother in law at their new house. he loves the idea of home brewing just doesnt have the patience, she doesnt drink at all.

i'm one exploded bucket short of my mini micro brewery being shut down haha
 
Jmw5107 said:
this is one of my biggest fears. i currently live with my sister and brother in law at their new house. he loves the idea of home brewing just doesnt have the patience, she doesnt drink at all.

i'm one exploded bucket short of my mini micro brewery being shut down haha
Click to expand...

Fermcap S is raved about on these forums by some. I've never used it but it looks like cheap insurance to help preserve your brewing!!
 
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