Lawrence Brewers Guild

After starting my Christmas/Winter Specialty Spiced Beer (SG 1.077) out at 50 degrees F with the yeast starter at the same temperature (WLP002), I let it ramp up to 65 degree.

At 50 degree, the yeast was showing good activity and the wort was a swirl of activity.

Figuring that the fermentation was out of the woods, the temperature was ramped to 65 degrees (normal temperature for the yeast).

I figured wrong. Checking the child at bed time (2030 hours), I was wondering if the fermentation would make it through the night. At 0430 hours the activity was checked. Too bad, the child had got excited and was all over the floor. Not to worry, with the excess CO2, the sanitized funnel and a sanitized piece of plastic came to the rescue.

The child is now back to sleep with the fermentation lock back in place.

A person has to watch out for excited children.

Yes children will act up and puke if they get clostraphobic. You must give them some more room. Lately I have found that if I split the batches between two carboys giving alot of head space. The attenuation producing lots of CO2 purges out the O2 and all the kreusen stays put. Another child tamer consists of a blow off tube venting into a jar of sanitizer. A fact thas seems to get by us unless we've figured it out is the more pressure experienced during attenuation the greater the tendency for the kreusen to grow and try to violently escape. You can ask my wife how this works. She has experience cleaning ou after misbehaved children. Perhaps this will help you out in the future.
Chuck

Here's my excited child as of a few minutes ago. Notice I have a bib on mine (large blow-off tube).
4.75 gal California Common:


These 2 are sleeping soundly awaiting kegging this week (4 weeks in primary).
5 gal Mild on left, 10 gal Porter on right:

Click an image to see a larger version.

That's a fun blow-off tube you've got there... what do you use to make the PVC fit the carboy airtight?

Matt

Matt wrote:That's a fun blow-off tube you've got there... what do you use to make the PVC fit the carboy airtight?

Matt

Just a short piece of 1" diameter tubing (normally called blow-off tubing from the LHBS). The PVC sections are not glued so it dismantles for easy cleaning (I just use a little keg lube on the joints to keep them from locking together too tight).
I used to use a 3 ft. piece of blow-off tubing that arched over from the top of the carboy to the water bucket, but it was hard to clean the inside and it was a pain to store (since it basically retains it's 'arc' shape), plus it required more overhead clearance.

EDIT: I'll bring one to the next meeting for show & tell.