Advice ASAP - brewing explosion

[thrifty++]

I am concerned about glass carboy explosion risk

I have a glass carboy sitting on a bench in my kitchen.

I started the brew about 20 hours ago. I woke up this morning and found it foaming out bigtime. Its coming through the airlock in a foam and leaking out. It keeps foaming out.

I am concerned about the risk of the carboy exploding.

I am torn between letting it to continue to foam out or approaching the carboy to remove the bung and airlock,

I am concerned at the risk of it exploding right on me while I try take the bung and air lock out.

I am also concerned at the risk of it exploding randomly on me while I am near it at some random time if I dont remove the bung and airlock. I can mitigate this risk however by avoiding being in the kitchen for a couple of days. Although I need to walk past it occassionally to go to the bathroom and occasionally to grab something to eat. I can avoid cooking though.

So I am weighing up the risks of letting it just continue to foam out until its calmed down a bit vs pulling the bung out now.

I am also unsure about how high the risk of it exploding with an airlock in it is though, if the yeast still get to breathe - in a constrained way albeit.

So what are others peoples experience with this? Keen on some words of wisdom from experienced brewers.

[Ego]

Bomb Squad suit?

[thrifty++]

hahaha. I was thinking of approaching it with gear on. But the best that I can do is sunglasses, thin little rubber gloves, shoes, shirt, track pants and a housecoat/robe, so doesnt give me loads of comfort.

[Gilberto de Piento]

Take off and nuke it from orbit?

I think this is a common issue. Try some googling and brewing forums. Based on what I read they can explode so you are smart to be wary.

[sky]

It won't explode. Pull the cork out and wrap a piece of aluminum foil over the opening to let it foam out without letting too much microbe air on it. In a day or so when it slows down, put the cork and airlock back on (after sanitizing it).

[thrifty++]

It won't explode. Pull the cork out and wrap a piece of aluminum foil over the opening to let it foam out without letting too much microbe air on it. In a day or so when it slows down, put the cork and airlock back on (after sanitizing it).

thanks Sky. Have you done that before?

[sky]

Yes and I switched to large diameter blow-off tubes to buckets instead of airlocks because of fast fermentations.

[thrifty++]

Ah cool. I just pulled it out and tipped the brew out. I will start again later. Wonder what caused it.

[sky]

Happy yeast

[Did]

Too hot ?

[thrifty++]

Too hot ?

Come to think of it that may well be the case. I rehydrated the yeast and in doing so used a fair amount more warm water than normal, so about a cup of warm water went into the mix. So it may well have made the whole thing too high a temperature.

[davebobk47]

I don't think too high of a heat will cause it. It sounds like a very active fast fermentation so guessing the temp was just about right.

I just finished a batch where I did pitch the yeast when the wort was still too hot. It caused the wort to smell like rubbing alcohol. I'm currently letting it mellow out a bit (bottled 3 weeks ago). It still has a bit of a strong aftertaste but I'm told with more time the off flavor will disappear.

[Riggerjack]

First, the airlock bleeds off pressure, so your carboy should never be under more than about 1psi. Whatever pressure is needed to push past the water in your airlock. Second, prevent this in the future with smaller batches, so foam has room to breakdown before reaching your airlock, and making a mess. Or use 6.5 gal carboys.

When homebrew explodes, it is because it was bottled before fermentation is complete, or too much sugar was added before bottling. The explosions are impressive, for what they are, but when a friend had some explosive Mead, we just put on safety glasses and gloves, and took them to open over a bathtub. He kept one under pressure, wrapped it in electrical tape to contain shrapnel, and just kept it for years, waiting to see how long it would take to blow. It hasn't.

This can be avoided by not getting impatient with your primary fermentation.

[Did]

In this case it was pre bottling no? Very active fast fermentation is not the goal as such. Certain styles of beers have certain temperature ranges in which the preferable flavours result. Ales for example are generally happiest at 18-19 degrees C, even though you could have it higher and consequently have more active fermentation which could have been the case here.

I don't know if it is strictly exothermic, but certainly the fermentation process produces its own heat. If controlling the temperature measuring the wort/liquor temperature rather than the ambient temperature is preferable. I had two wines on last week in the Irish winter and needed the fridge to be on to cool things down after the temperature jumped to 30 degrees C. I stick the thermometer onto the side of the fermenter with tape and insulate it with some polystyrene.