(no subject)

[inahandbasket]

so I WAS going to bed a half hour ago.

Earlier tonight I came home from dinner with a friend to discover the lid of my fermenter literally blown halfway off the bucket. That was with 1.5 gallons of headspace! it's 5 gallons in a 6.5 gal bucket! I had an airlock pop out once before, but this is the first time I've had a lid popped open. Those lids go on VERY tight.

The fermentation seemed to have chilled out a bit, so I cleaned up the lid and the bucket rim, rinsed the yeast out of the airlock, sanitized everything, and put it all back together thinking that the worst was over.
Watched the Daily show, the Colbert Report, and then we were packin it in for bed. I stuck my head in the closet to make sure everything was ok, and what do I find! The freakin airlock is filled again, and tilting precariously out of the hole in the lid that it's supposed to be firmly in.
Oh well, sleep is overrated.
Clean the airlock out again, install a blow-off tube for the second time ever, and I've been keeping an eye on it for 10 minutes now.
Seems like it'll make it through the night without destroying my closet, so I'm off to bed.

I guess this is is what I get for brewing a ~1.080 OG beer for the first time.

Comments

[enmascarado.livejournal.com]

open air fermentation, it's the way to go.

[inahandbasket]

apparently. ^_^

[komos.livejournal.com]

I freaked Pete out because I had blowoff from the ESB from the 6 gallon carboy. That takes some doing, but as I recall, the White Labs Burton yeast is pretty active even with mid-range (~1.058) gravities.

Pete's convinced there's something off with the beer. Having tasted it, I'm pretty sure that there's no infection, but that I may have overdone the water treatment.

[inahandbasket]

got a nice ZING to it, has it? ;o)

[komos.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I took it up a notch.

[enmascarado.livejournal.com]

modern drunkard livejournal icon! nice