Blowout from Extract Kit...repercussions?

[BigIrishApe]

My 3rd extract kit has just been put into the fermenter. It's my first "spiced" brew, being a Spiced Pumpkin Ale kit. The local store was out of their "spice packet" but the guy who assembled the kit for me anyways said that just plain ol' McCormack's Pumpkin Pie Spice is all it was, and would work just fine from the store. My previous two brews have been an Alt beer and a Belgian Blonde. Neither of those two brews had any additions at the end of the boil, so I am used to just working with wort, water and yeast.

So anyways, I finished the brew on Sunday night and put it into the fermenter around 7pm. Standard plastic bucket, stopper, airlock setup. I'm fairly OCD, so I always make a habit of checking the seal on the lid, and using a rubber mallet to make sure it's sealed all the way...just light taps, no John Henry stuff here. I wake up at 6am the following morning and I go to make breakfast and I hear what sounds to be a million crickets chirping in my dining room (aka: fermenter storage location). I notice the air lock bubbling like crazy, foaming over at the top, and the sanitized water in the airlock is cloudy yellow and there is krausen foam all over the top of the keg from overflow. I'm still half asleep at this time, so I figure I'll check it after breakfast and a shower.

By the time I get back out into the dining room to clean up the mess, I notice the airlock has stopped bubbling...this is about 7am. I notice the lid is pooched out, so I give it a little press and nothing comes out of the airlock. I press it again, and it lets out this nasty burbling fart noise...but nothing comes out of the airlock. I look behind the bucket, and foam/krausen has managed to leak its way out from under the lid and gotten on my curtains. I clean that up, refill the airlock, replace it and put the bucket into an empty box I have laying around the garage to catch any "incidental splatter." While cleaning the airlock, I notice what looks like a mix of pumpkin pie spice and yeast sludge clogging up the tip of the airlock.

I get home around 8pm that evening and again, airlock is full, foam coming out of the back of the bucket, and there is mess everywhere. Whatever leaked out of the fermenter ran down the side of the bucket and soaked the cardboard I had it sitting on. I had to use a metal spatula to get the cardboard off of my window seat. It looked like putty had been used to glue it down, but I think it was just yeast sludge that had leaked, soaked, and congealed. I get that whole situation cleaned up again, remove and clean the airlock, find another "fermenter storage solution" in the form of a water bottle box...the kind with a cardboard bottom surrounded by thick plastic so I won't get anymore leakage beyond that point...and replace the airlock with sanitized water again.

Since that 2nd cleanup, I haven't had any issues with the fermenter. It's going steady, no more regurgitation that I can detect, everything seems to be working well as expected.

So...questions...

1. Since I had to remove the airlock on 2 occasions, what do you think my chances are of having a contaminated brew?
2. It is a 6 or 6.5 gallon bucket, the brew was no more than 5 gallons. Should I try to get a 6.5gal carboy with blowoff tube for the next batch? I'm thinking of going carboy anyways just so I can see the beer as its brewing to keep better tabs on it...
3. I used a smackpack of yeast for the first time, would that have promoted such a violent initial fermentation that the krausen would have had to overflow/explode like that?



Thanks folks, and any other thoughts and suggestions are welcome

[brewranger]

1. Since I had to remove the airlock on 2 occasions, what do you think my chances are of having a contaminated brew?
2. It is a 6 or 6.5 gallon bucket, the brew was no more than 5 gallons. Should I try to get a 6.5gal carboy with blowoff tube for the next batch? I'm thinking of going carboy anyways just so I can see the beer as its brewing to keep better tabs on it...
3. I used a smackpack of yeast for the first time, would that have promoted such a violent initial fermentation that the krausen would have had to overflow/explode like that?

1. I would say that the only chance for contamination is if you didn't clean/sanitize the airlock each time. but even then its a small chance. from your story, you definitely have positive pressure, so nothing is falling inside. This is a good problem to have. your real issue is pressure release/blockage. If you are in a pinch you could put a short piece of racking cane into the vapor space and attach tubing to make a blowoff tube...the opening should be larger than the airlocks. or just change out airlocks as they get dirty.
2. In general i think carboy is the way to go, i would actually suggest a better bottle. I try to avoid using glass now that I have one. You
3. Not knowing what you used before....it depends. Some strains are more violent than others.

[Bugeater]

I don't think you will have any problems with sanitation from what happened. With the CO2 and other gunk blowing out, nasty microbes and such won't be able to fly upstream and get into the fermenter.

One phrase in your post however made me wonder about other problems. You mentioned "window seat". How are you controlling fermentation temperature? The window seat reference makes me think you are fermenting much too warm. If you are not using any temperature control you should be doing this in the coolest spot in the house, preferably in a tub of water with a wet shirt or towel draped around the fermenter so water can be wicked up and evaporated to cool the fermenter a few degrees. A window seat is not going to be the coolest spot in the house.

Fermenting too warm (above 70° in my opinion) will tend to make the wort ferment much faster (causing much blow off) and can create some nasty esters in the finished beer. The suggested fermentation temperature range on the yeast package is ideal for growing healthy yeast but is generally too warm for producing great beer. You should look at the low end of the range as the maximum fermentation temperature you should use. You can't go by the ambient temperature of the room as an indication of the fermentation temperature. An active fermentation can create wort temperatures 8-10° above the ambient temperature.

Wayne

[BigIrishApe]

Brewranger: Thanks for the feedback. I was planning to pick up a Better Bottle when I did decide to make the jump to carboy. I read a lot about them, and being more resilient to any incidental droppage or banging around than glass is always a plus in my book

Bugeater: Thank you for the feedback as well. The window seat I mention isn't a huge issue, I believe. It faces my heavily wooded backyard and gets almost zero direct sunlight. I have a thick curtain on the window, and since the 2nd blowout I've wrapped a towel around the bucket. When I upgrade to a carboy I will be getting a stick-on thermometer for it rather than just going by best-guess from ambient temperature in the room. With the weather changing now, it's been anywhere from 68-72 in my house these past few weeks. I originally kept the fermenting bucket on the window seat to avoid any drafts from the AC/heating vents in my dining room. That's about the only out of the way spot for me to put a fermenter and still be able to keep an eye on it, AND to have fairly easy cleanup should anything like this happen.

[fatcat660]

I try to stay on the lower end of the scale. My basement is usually about 65 year long so it works well for me. It does seem to make for longer fementing time but cleaner berr. IMO

[dougriddle]

That is exactly why I go for the blowoff tube & carboy cap pretty much exclusively (except for lagering) during fermentation. I've used 1/2" tubing placed into the hole of the lid of the "ale pale" for a blowoff. The tub had to be wrangled in there so there wasn't any major concerns for oxygen overload-definitely saved my ass in a pinch!

[Fugglupagus]

If it makes you feel any better, I once had a Kolsch do this:



. . . . which was about 4' away from this:



. . . . . . and it turned out great.

[spiderwrangler]

A lot of guys are fans of anti-foam products. The fear is always that it will impact head, but I haven't heard any stories to that effect yet.