BEERSPLOSION!!!
Ok, not quite. But I narrowly avoided one. Some of you may remember an incident which took place with one of my very first batches of homebrew, the “IPA Gone Wild”.
The crafty yeast threw me off with one day of showing no activity, then faked right, threw an elbow, and sunk a layup as I sprawled across the blacktop. I awoke the second morning to find my airlock clogged and launched, my clothes covered in grain bits, and my shoes and guitars soaked in an overflow brewpuddle.
That is one of the saddest words on earth. Brewpuddle.
Anyway, I transferred the batch to a larger fermenter, sopped up my own puddle of tears over the wasted beer, and the rest of the process went swimmingly. Since then I’ve done things a bit differently, mostly using a 7gal container for the primary to leave room for any rogue frenzies. However, this is the first time I’ve had two batches fermenting simultaneously, so I had to use a carboy for the second batch. Since it’s a relatively simple recipe, a Bavarian Hefeweizen, I just made the batch a tad smaller and planned to add more water later, probably just before kegging.
I checked on it just 12 hrs after boiling and it had already foamed up into the airlock and was spitting everywhere. Luckily I caught it before it blew the top off and really made a mess. I wrapped the carboy in towels to save the floor from drips, cleaned the airlock, cleared some foam, and set it up again. By that evening it had calmed down a bit, but That brew is still churning away under the surface.
That’s what I love about a glass carboy. It’s just plain cool to see bubbles and grain swirling in a yeast induced frenzy!
Anyway, crisis averted. For now…
P.S: I played around with the recipe a bit, adding freshly sliced orange, a splash of cinnamon and a few cloves into the boil during the last ten minutes or so. I likely taste it at keg time, and may drop a stick or two of cinnamon in the keg so the spicy taste grows as it ages.
afruitcocktail 