They were not kidding... KA-BOOM!!

[prospector]

OK... so Ive got one rum wash going according to my cousins recipe... its perking along, slow but sure... So.. I says.. Ill try the DWWG recipe. I mix it up in a white fermenting bucket, and its been perking really well for 6 days or so now.

I figure it will be done soon, so I decide to put another batch on. But as I'm after a grain based product, this time I put 1/2 a pound of flaked rye in the pot with only 1/2 the wheat germ to see if it would make any difference in taste...

AND I put it in a glass carboy so I could watch it ferment. Now mind you I had read the warning about blowing the top off the fermenter in the original recipe post, but since my first batch didn't present any problems I didn't worry too much.

I added yeast to the mixture at 5 o'clock pm, and at 10 o'clock pm it was starting to perk. When I went to bed everything looked fine.

At 5 o'clock this morning, there is this resounding BOOM, I flew outta bed, I knew right what it was....

Oh my friggin god... the burper thingy must have filled with foam/slurry, and the pressure blew the top off. A bit more than half of the contents of the carboy shot out and all over everything withing ten feet of the carboy. that is one sticky mess.... LOL... I've gone through the first phase of cleaning.. I think there will be a couple more...

Anyway.. the only real problem is now I have to recreate that batch.. ha ha!! anyway... for other newbs like me... if you are doing the DWWG pay real close attention....

[rad14701]

Ouch...!!! Yeah, you need to try it again and guarantee against the booming messy part...

[prospector]

Ya!! well NO glass carboy this time... a Plastic Jug with a loose(r) burper..

[brewmaker1]

Or use a blowoff tube

[prospector]

Thats a gooder idea.. even for the bucket... leave those little burpers for the wine...

[Freedave]

well, i'm glad to hear it was the fermenter and not the still. that's what i thought when i read the thread title.

any way thanks for sharing and good luck with the next batch.

[kevin]

well, i'm glad to hear it was the fermenter and not the still. that's what i thought when i read the thread title.

any way thanks for sharing and good luck with the next batch.

I WAS THINKIN THE SAME THING. BE CAREFUL OUT THERE

[BW Redneck]

I can vouch for the blowoff tube. A while ago, I was doing an all grain wheat batch and I decided to add a pinch or two of epsom salt to the mix. I had been using the blowoff tube idea ever since I started, since I had a lot of plastic hose lying around and I was too cheap to buy dedicated airlocks. Sure enough, it had foamed over so much that the water in the bucket I was using was fizzing the next morning.

My mother always did dandelion wine when I was a kid, and she was just going by instructions she'd found on a really old recipe card. Unfortunately, the recipe card left out some explicit directions that would be necessary to someone who just started home brewing, such as not to cap the bottles tightly when you pour the fermenting mixture in (it finishes in the bottle). Sure enough, every one of them exploded. Some years, the fermentation is still so active that she loses a few bottles, so they get transferred into a Coleman cooler for a few weeks before moving them.

[prospector]

Thats funny.. when I was a younger man, I did a bacth of beer with my moms help... one day around two weeks after we had bottled them they started to explode, we lost 1/2 the case in around a two hour window... too much sugar I guess.

[minime]

Thats funny.. when I was a younger man, I did a bacth of beer with my moms help... one day around two weeks after we had bottled them they started to explode, we lost 1/2 the case in around a two hour window... too much sugar I guess.

Hey prospector, you should have been drinkin' em as they was opening, you wouldn't have lost anything but a little foam

[absinthe]

i don't even bother with the air lock in the first stages.. just cover with plastic wrap and pop a small hole in it.. when the ferment slows you can put in an air lock.. (i don't bother and have never lost a batch)

[HookLine]

I do the same as absinthe. Never had a problem.

[rad14701]

Actually, for top fermenting yeasts, leaving the fermenter uncovered, or lightly covered, causes the yeast to multiply into a healthy number which will aid in fermentation... Yeast approximately double in numbers every three hours and the new yeast will be better adjusted to the wash in which they reside... That said, allowing the yeast to multiply by allowing more air and less CO2 for the first few hours is a good thing... This can be advantageous even if you started the yeast before adding it to the wash... This is one of the reasons I recently started a stir plate topic - to get some of the rapid multiplication out of the way... Might help eliminate a potential KA-BOOM...

[Dnderhead]

I thank it is a surface tension thing. oils etc in the wash/mash. Iv had even open ferments "boil over" Iv read where some ferments like rum
they use a scraper to continuously skim off the dunder and use it to start another ferment.

[brewmaker1]

I just read the same thing. In beer brewing, it's called krauzen instead of dunder, and I never thought of scraping it off to make a starter for the next batch. We usually just pull the yeast out of the bottom, but I can see a benefit to taking it off the top too. It's fresh and lively up there the first day.

[rad14701]

Burping through the cap, if you can call it burping at times, can even be an issue with standard wine making... Projectile vomit would be a more accurate description...

[blanikdog]

Years ago, when I was still married to my first wife I made some pear wine and left it in the kitchen to ferment. I had to go to Army training that night and it was fermenting really well and at some stage the ferment lock blocked with a bit of fruit and it pushed out. She - who had to be divorced - stuck it back in without clearing the blockage so soon after it happend again. SWHTBD put it back again, but with a little more force. This happened several times - using more and more force - and when I got home there was pear slops all over the ceiling, windows, floor, bench for me to clean up. She wasn't happy, but it couldn't have happened to a better person.

blanik

EDIT: Have I told this story before?

[punkin]

yes.

[Rudi]

yep but its still funny

[rad14701]

blanik, that story should improve with age, just like fine spirits... Or should it degrade like an infected ferment...???

[Hack]

It's all right Blanik, it's the first time I've heard it. SWHTBD, I like that moniker.