Blowing Off

Brewed a new brew sunday. In anticipation of the holiday season I went for a holiday ale kit from Kirks. Basic recipe - throw in a ton of malt, add extra hops and toss in some spices for good measure. This stuff was thick. Like syrup. Everything went great through the boil - I even chilled it in record time. Then came the siphoning - which sucked. For some reason none of the trub settled out during the cool down, which greatly increased the viscosity and slowed the siphon way down. This effect combined with chunks of floating orange peel getting stuck in my racking cane meant I had to restart my siphon about 10 times before giving up and pouring the wort through a strainer.



The recent cold weather has dropped the temp in our basement to ~60F. I decided to leave the carboy upstairs where it is a little warmer (upper 60s). Unfortunately we don't have a real dark place upstairs as even the closet has a window, therefore I wrapped the carboy in a blanket and stuck it the back hallway.

So far so good. Last night I had to go to the blow-off tube as foam started jetting through my airlock. Apparently 1gal of head space was not enough for this beer. The incessant gurgling was quite nice to fall asleep to. The foaming continued through the night and was still going yet this morning, which really suprised me. I'm guessing I've lost half a quart of beer. I probably could have moved to the airlock this morning, but opted to leave on the blow-off tube just in case. Hopefully it is done by this evening, as I don't want to loose any more beer.