Foam at the top of the fermenter?

Hello, I recently brewed a 1 gal batch of the Irish Red Ale. I used a blow-off tube for the first 2 days of fermentation which was very helpful as I had a lot of foam bubble up and out but my question is, should I still be seeing left over foam in the top of my carboy? I removed the blow-off tube on day 3 when the foam was no longer going down the tube and replaced it with an airlock but there is still quite a bit of residue left at the top almost 2 weeks later. Bubbling has died down almost to 0 in the airlock btw and there doesnt seem to be much going on in the fermenter at this point.

Thanks for your help in advance!

cmacbeen

Remnants of the krausen sticking to the side of the carboy is normal. Often it dries to a crusty ring which needs to be soaked in cleaner to remove after racking the beer to the bottling bucket.

Without a blow off tube assembly the dried krausen sometimes needs to be cleaned from the ceiling.

6 Likes

And there is really only one sure way to find out if your beer is finished fermenting- take a SG(specific gravity) with a hydrometer. Although if you don’t want to waste any of that precious beer, you are probably done and ready to package after 2 weeks. But, I am nervous if I don’t get hard confirmation, by taking a SG. Good luck, it all sounds nominal at this point (yes I watched the SpaceX launch yesterday)

I bottled on Sunday that put my primary at 17 days. Fg reading of 1.008!! No problem with foam residue on bottling day (just like y’all said) but I did have some siphon issue when racking. I’m hoping I didn’t introduce too much O2! I’ll let these condition in bottle for 3 weeks and give it a go

1 Like