Loosing Beer During Early Fermentation

Northern Brewer General
1

Hello everyone,

So I am working on my third 1 gallon kit from Northern Brewers. This is the bourbon barrel porter kit, and it is performing similarly to the caribou slobber kit I did last. While the kits typically turn out great, I do not get nearly a gallon of beer from the 1 gallon kit. Usually only about 8 bottles. I am starting with the 1.25 gallons it instructs, and this time when I was done filling the fermenter, I was just shy of the one gallon mark so I thought I was on the right track. But the first 24 hours of fermentation is so violent that I end up losing quite a bit into my airlock (after this happened with the last recipe I decided to use a large tube going into a bucket of sanitized water as my airlock for the first day or so, I switch to the three piece plastic airlock once the reaction settles down). Am I doing something wrong? Or is it normal to lose that much during the first bit of fermentation? Thanks!

2

That is normal, easiest way to address that is use a larger fermenter. Something like this would work. http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/bett … allon.html

I’ve got a 10 gallon batch of that porter going right now too and was glad I had plenty of head space since in my fermentors since it had a very large krausen.

3

You would lose a lot less if you could hold the temperature in the low 60’s. That should be easy on a small scale like putting the fermenter in a large pot of cool tap water and monitor with a thermometer.

4

Agree with lower temps. Many ales will benefit from a lower temp in the first place. When doing higher gravity beers, I often do two separate yeast additions. A starter would be cheaper, but I know of more than a few guys who have lost beer. I’d rather keep as much beer as possible.

5

A few drops of Fermcap-S could help too.