So I got a kit for Christmas and am completely new to home brewing. I did the caribou slobber kit and after a few days of fermenting, this cabbage/slaw looking stuff appeared in the neck of my carboy. It completely blocked up the neck of it. Not knowing anything, I just let it continue to bottling day. I tested the beer before i bottled and the hydrometer was floating with all the numbers above the surface of the liquid (not a true hydrometer I don’t think, it has numbers 1-4). I unclogged the neck and put the beer back for fermentation. Anyone know what problem I’m having?
It could simply be Krauesen, which is expected…
Did it look anything like this?
Or this?
old pics from 2015
No not exactly. I should have gotten a pic before I unclogged it, that would have been the smart move. But I read about krausen after it started but no pictures of it looked like what I had. It wasn’t foamy at all. It was straight up solid. But you may be right, it may be krausen. And after two weeks, it smelled very sweet and idk if that’s a sign of no fermentation or not
The Caribou Slobber can really ferment fast and vigorously, and can breach the neck of the carboy without temperature control…that may be what you had, the residue of the highest point the kraeusen reached…
Did it taste ok? I always made a habit of tasting the wort, fermenting beer, etc
I didn’t taste it. Wasn’t sure about the safety of it. I guess I was worried that something went horribly wrong and might make me sick. But I’ll try it when I get home. Anything I need to be looking for? Off tastes? No alcohol?
Someone might be able to correct me, but I’ve never heard of anyone getting actually ill from anything growing in a homebrew. It might taste terrible, but not dangerous.
Hopefully it didn’t look like these:
Pellicle formation from intended or unintended sources.
No nothing like that. That honestly looks like something that would make you sick. But I’ll be sure to give it a try. Thanks for that bit of information
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This is what it looks like. The only way to unclog it was to push it all down into the beer, so that’s what’s floating. I unclogged it yesterday and today I’m seeing bubbles, which I believe is a good sign. You mentioned it may have fermented too vigorously due to the temperature. What do I need to do to control this in the future?
Actually that looks pretty good. Seeing that, I’m pretty sure that was just kraeusen and or hop debris in the neck.
There are a number of ways you can control fermentation temperature, simple things like exchanging frozen water
bottles in a water bath, here inside a Home Depot water cooler, works pretty well… also something called a swamp cooler. Eventually I used an old refrigerator which I override with a Johnson controller to keep the temp at wherever I want it to be.
Ok thanks a ton for the help. Hopefully unclogging it got it back on track and I’ll end up with a decent beer. Who knows.
I see you put the test sample back in the fermenter? Thats not something you should do… Test it and drink it…
sneezles61
Oh no I didn’t put my sample back in there. I poured it down the sink
Sneezles61
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This looks like a Krausen line (dried foam from the fermentation.)
What kind of yeast was in the brew if you remember.
Some yeasts like bread yeast the krausen line is non existent
Montrachet I have seen a head on the that would make beer envious.
If the foam gets in the airlock remove the airlock and install a blow off tube. It’s Simpson piece of tubing from the bung and goes down in a bottle of water until the fermentation calms down then installba clean airlock
