mash airlock blow off :/ ??

[hazardous]

I just started this. Just finished my still today and got my airlocks in so i mad e a basic easy cheap mash i read on here. 5 gallons water,5lbs cornmeal, 10lbs sugar three packets of highly active yeast . brought cormeal meal and water to a boil. Turned. Off heat stirred in sugar waited till cool added yeast. Poured into better bottle leaving about 1 " under the neck in free space, put in cork and air lock and went to bed. Woke up to a loud pop with my cork and airlock halfway across the room and mash everywhere. What did i do wrong?

[BentJar]

Im no expert but I think you used too much suger. 1 pound per gal. water and then I throw in an extra 1/2 pound. I also use 2 pkg. of active yeast.
Get a brew bucket at the brew store. Or better get 2.
Iv'e been fermenting now nearly a year and had one bad batch. Corn meal dont work for us, because it stops up the filter screen when charging the still. I grind my corn the day I work up my bucket and watch what goes into the grinder. Then before pitching the yeast, scoop all the floaties from the bucket. Stir, wait
and scoop. There is some nasty crap like hay, corn cob parts, insect parts and God know what in there. Most will float. You want to get that out.
This grow season, Im going to a farmer and buy my own corn.

just my 2 cents
Bent

[bellybuster]

Regardless of your sugar amount you will have washes that ferment more active than others. It's only negative is the mess.
Instead of an airlock try a snug fitting piece of tubing into a bucket with some water for the first 24 hours.
I now place my fermenter in a large basin of sorts in case of gushers. It's just a big rope handled bucket sort of.

[rad14701]

The actual problem is that you didn't leave enough head space in your fermenting bucket for the krausen and the airlock probably got plugged which caused pressure to build up... Last fall I accidentally gutted my bathroom after mistakenly selecting too small of a fermentation vessel when experimenting with a grape based sugar wash... But I'm glad I caught the problem before the glass carboy exploded in my office closet...

You did go a bit steep on the sugar and cornmeal combined... You were at 14% with the sugar alone and would gain a bit more from the cornmeal as the wash fermented... I'd have used 1.5 pounds of sugar per gallon with that much cornmeal, and some folks use equal proportions of cornmeal and sugar... With 5 pounds of cornmeal and sugar you would most likely have ended up at 8% - 10% potential alcohol... That's 7% for the sugar and the rest would be the bump from cornmeal conversion during fermentation...

[smitty7775]

+ 1 on not enough head space....

I have a 6.5 gallon carboy and only fill it up
enough to leave 7 inches at least...if i have to
use my 5 gallon carboy for fermenting i leave
7 inches for the first few days and then add
more sugar water.. the amount of sugar water
depends on how much i planned ahead...

I plan for a bigger fermenting container soon.
thinking about a plastic trash can...food grade.
then i can ferment enough for 3 or 4 runs at one
time and rack of the rest into smaller containers
until i get around to running it all. I'll still keep an
air lock on the smaller containers, because a warm
day can cause pressure if capped.

Smitty,

[Soggy Bottom Boy]

.

1" of head space?!


PRICELESS!

Your fermenting Cherry has been popped! (...along with your air lock)

.

[Windy City]

I use 15 gal glass Demi-Johns & max out at 12 1/2 gals or 6 1/2 gal glass carboys & max out at 5 1/2 gals
I gave up on airlocks years ago due to their failure rate & switched to blow off tubes with great success. I take the rubber bung & open the center hole a little so I can squeeze a 1/2" od silicone tube (approx 2 1/2' long) into the top so that it barely protrudes through the bottom
Then put the other end into a 5 gal bucket filled with 2 1/2 gal of water & enough Starsan for 5 gals of water (double strength) When I first started doing this I would find the tube floating out of the solution so now I tape a brass nipple over the tube near the end as a weight to keep the outlet of the tube near the bottom. I keep it like this for the whole ferment & only change the solution if & after a blow off into the bucket. I will also put the blow off tubes of up to 3 Demi-Johns into 1 bucket but only if they are the same beer