Fermentation Bomb!

[Befuddler]

Yesterday saw the long awaited brewing of my RIS, with it's ludicrous 1.110 gravity and generous pitching of the renowned sugar-muncher WLP007. I anticipated this to be a rather enthusiastic fermentation, so dutifully set up a blow-off tube and put it to bed in the fridge, gleefully dreaming of the joys awaiting me upon completion.

Imagine my horror, dear reader, when I awoke this morning to be greeted with the scene of destruction recorded below. It seems I may have underestimated the ferocity of the yeast somewhat. As far as I can deduce, the blow-off worked fine at first, but was quickly overwhelmed by the rising pressure of frantic microbial action. It should be noted that the lid of this fermenter is stiff. To remove it by hand I normally have to brace my elbows against the near side and lever it off - my yeasty friends had no such troubles.

The fermenter exploded with enough force to not only redecorate the insides of my fridge Bobby Sands style, it also blew open the front door and sat there all grinning and mouth agape until I stumbled upon it's countenance of terror.

I don't know how this didn't wake me in the night.. It must've gone with a quite a bang.

[coatesg]

I laugh only because I remember having the same oozing black mess the first time I brewed one of these - with mine it was seen to be dribbling out of the fridge door, and all over the kitchen floor...

[Gricey]

[Deebee]

Strange!

I have brewed using oo7 before and had 27 litres of stout in the FV, used with a normal airlock and the skum just touched the lid.

I brewed the last stout with 2 packs of s-04 and the same. i have never had a serious exposion.

i wonder why?

I am brewing an RIS later this autumn though and will be piching wlp001... lets hop i get one of these. What was your brewlength.

[Befuddler]

Strange!

I have brewed using oo7 before and had 27 litres of stout in the FV, used with a normal airlock and the skum just touched the lid.

I brewed the last stout with 2 packs of s-04 and the same. i have never had a serious exposion.

i wonder why?

I am brewing an RIS later this autumn though and will be piching wlp001... lets hop i get one of these. What was your brewlength.

I brewed a strong bitter with the 007 first and repitched from that. The krausen on that batch was maybe 2 inches high at its peak, so its obviously down to the sheer amount of fermentables in this sticky black muck.. There were 20 litres in the fermenter to start with, it's probably more like 18.5 now..

[dave-o]

Well, at least you can be pretty sure that any wild yeast attracted to the party would have been seen off sharpish by those tanked up bad boys.

[196osh]

Well, at least you can be pretty sure that any wild yeast attracted to the party would have been seen off sharpish by those tanked up bad boys.

Superb.

[EoinMag]

It looks to me like your ferment pushed the lid up and kinked the blow off tube against the top of the fridge and that caused a blockage which caused the ensuing explosion...

[grmills]

But why snap the lid on during primary fermentation? Open-top fermenting is fine inside the fridge.

[leedsbrew]