New to home brewing and glad you experienced ones are here! Pitched yeast to Caribou wort last night at 10pm and set aside in room with 66 degree temp; wort temp was 72. At 8am this morning, active fermentation with airlock in place and carboy was 68. Looking good! At 7pm, krausen has doubled and carboy temp is now 70; not worried about temp increase since the wort is"cooking" so to say. Since this is my first attempt, at what point should I decide to insert blowoff hose? Don’t need an explosion in the spare bedroom! I am using a 6 gal carboy and my krausen is about 2" thick.
Welcome!
I recommend skipping the airlock and going with a blowoff hose from the start. You’re usually out of the danger zone when the krausen has begun to fall. If you don’t have a reason to switch to an airlock at that point, you can leave the blowoff hose on for the entire time.
Thanks for feedback. Using the blowoff hose at the start makes sense and gives me a secondary use of the sanitizer at the other end of the hose instead of throwing it away.
Update - need your opinions
After sanitizing the blowoff tube and inserting it into the neck of carboy at 9pm the krausen continued to expand (chk’d at 11pm); knew I had made a wise decision! Next morning the krausen had subsided to about 1" on top of wort, gases were venting but not as active and temp had dropped from 70 to 68. This morning (24 hrs later) the wort is visible and krausen is limited and lying on top. Gases are slowly venting one bubble at a time abt every 45 secs. Temp has dropped to 64. Normal being a relative term, am I seeing natural progression? Reading says 1-2 weeks before krausen falls into wort and gases stop venting. Trying to understand the process.
Sounds totally normal. Don’t stress at all about the amount or timing of off-gassing. Note that formation, intensity and duration of the krausen will vary by yeast strain (and other factors like temp. and specific gravity).
For example, Wyeast West Yorkshire typically forms a thick, super creamy krausen that may last a month if you let it even in a low gravity beer. I pitched Wyeast Scottish Ale into a 1.061 stout last Sunday and the krausen had completely fallen by Thursday.
Thanks KC once again for the info. Should I presume that 2 weeks is long enough before transfer secondary to next carboy? I do not have the ability (as yet) to check the gravity.
I just move a one gallon batch of Caribou Slobber from the cook pot to the one gallon glass fermenter. I didn’t notice anyone talking about overflows during fermentation in the reviews so I just went with an airlock. Is this definitely a mistake? Should go ahead and replace the airlock with a blowoff tube?
Thanks!
Roy
[quote=“rhallva”]I just move a one gallon batch of Caribou Slobber from the cook pot to the one gallon glass fermenter. I didn’t notice anyone talking about overflows during fermentation in the reviews so I just went with an airlock. Is this definitely a mistake? Should go ahead and replace the airlock with a blowoff tube?
Thanks!
Roy[/quote]
Yes 1 gal of wort in a 1gal fermentor will lead to blow off. Also try keeping the temp low like 60-64 it will help keep the krausen small and lead to less beer loss and also produce better beer. After 3 days or so you can let the temp rise to 70~.
I suspect the krausen in your 1 gallon will be looking for head room if my experience as noted for my 5 gallon paints the picture. I’d swap now if you haven’t already. Thankful to the forum mentors for their wisdom.
If you can’t read the gravity, just wait it out (although it might be tough to resist).
IMO secondary isn’t really necessary with this beer but there are differing opinions on the effectiveness of a secondary, so you can either leave it be or rack to secondary. Either way, you’re not hurting it by leaving it alone for an extra week or so.
Caribou Slobber kits from here seem to go pretty quick, so once you see no activity for a couple of days straight, you can rack to the secondary and then leave for a couple more weeks to settle out, then bottle and leave for another 2 weeks or so.
I really recommend getting yourself a hydrometer so you don’t really have to play the guessing game. You’ll know exactly when your brew is done fermenting.
