UH OH! Very clogged airlock

[SFGiantsFan925]

Hey guys and girls,

I arrived home this morning after 72 hours away from home. I brewed on Tuesday, and decided to place my carboy in my keezer at 66 deg F to control the temp while I was gone. Well, it looked like it worked haha.

As I lifted the lid to my keezer, I look in to find my carboy FULL of krausen, with my airlock completely full of solid yeast like stuff. No liquid, no foam, just a solid sludge type material. So, I sanitized a piece of foil, removed the airlock, and went to clean it out. I put the foil over the airlock hole to prevent contamination and cleaned the airlock. It also appeared that I had a slight amount of spillover around the carboy cap (Its a plastic carboy). I think this actually prevented it from exploding all over the place. BTW, the beer smells great haha.

So, heres my question. I notice there is still a considerable krausen on top of the beer, and what appears to be a yeast cake or some large, dense chunks of material on top of the beer. Do I just leave all this here and hope it settles after time? Should I swirl the carboy to reincorporate it into the wort? The freshly cleaned/ sanitized airlock is still bubbling away, so I think its still fermenting.

As for the beer, its a Pale Ale, and my OG was 1.068. I used a vial of White Labs WLP001 and half a packet of Safale S-05 dry yeast due to the high OG and direction from this forum. So, would that be causing the crazy fermentation or is this pretty normal? Its my first ever brew, so be kind haha.

Here is a pic of what I came home to find. Should have taken a pic of the airlock, but I kinda freaked and just cleaned it.

 

[FATC1TY]

What size carboy?

I usually use 6.5 gallon and rarely have anything get to the narrower portion of them.

Any smaller, and that much yeast and the higher gravity, and it'll kick like a mule and get up there. Fermentation will vary from beer to beer, and whatnot. This is normal if you have active fermentation, and a smaller carboy, or with a bigger than 5 gallon batch.

Some people use blow off tubes in instances like this. Put a jug with sanitizer it in, put a tube on the top of the carboy bung and let it hang to the bottom of the sanitizer. If any crud makes it up there, it'll run down into the jug, without blowing the path of the co2 being released and causing a blow out, and a mess.

 

[Pie_Man]

The krausen will eventually settle out on its own. It's not necessary to reincorporate that stuff into the rest of your beer.

As far as fermentation, the vigour of fermentation depends on the pitching rate, yeast strain, temperature, and oxygen. On higher gravity beers, a blow off tube is usually recommended. It's basically a tube that goes into either the opening of the carboy, or over the stem of the airlock with the other end going into a container of sanitizer.

Everything looks good

 

[SFGiantsFan925]

It is a 6 gal. carboy. Not sure why it acted so crazy. Everything seems to be back to normal though. We shall see! Cheers and thanks guys

 

[FATC1TY]

Yeah, pretty active, but you pitched MORE than enough yeast for the moderately high gravity you have there.

I wouldnt worry. If I happens on the next batch, then look to using a blow off tube for your primary next time.

 

[unionrdr]

Initial fermentation is quite often very robust like that. Completely normal. The pale ale actually looks darn good,classic color. No worries,mate.