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o boy! need some questions answered please.

madchef77

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OK there are a few things that I need to start with.  We have been getting in to harvesting the yeast to save money. Great idea.  I have been reading all about it am reading about starters and came up with an idea of my own.  I make a 5 gallon batch with the desired yeast.  After its done fermenting I secondary my beer and harvest the yeast into 3 equal parts.  I also can brew 10 gallons of beer (Hmmm yum). So this is my idea.  after we harvest the yeast on the same day I brew 10 gallons of beer everything is going fantastic. Now the wort is chilled and put in fermentation buckets for aeration. I aerate for about 4-5 mins shacking the fermenting bucket and pitch the yeast.  I put 1 part of yeast in the each bucket (this is what I have read).

For the harvested yeast boil a gallon of water cool it off.  Poor it in the yeast, mix it up wait for the sediment to settle and collect the yum yums (yeast).  so a gallon of yeast was collected and split in the 3 equal parts. 

Now on the my question-  I woke up this morning with my basement smelling fantastic only to find that the beer is foaming out of the bubbler! damn.  is this due to to much yeast or over aeration?  If it is the yeast should I make smaller amounts? and by the way its still foaming so reply fast!

Thanks for helping

 
Blowoff like you describe is normal. Particularly for repitched yeast.

However, you are probably pitching too much yeast. Goto mrmalty.com or yeastcalc.com to calculate the right amount of slurry to pitch. If you are making the same beer again, the normally you would use about 1/4th of the yeast from the previous batch.  From your description, it sounds like you are using 1/3rd in each 5 gallon fermentor, when 1/8th would be more appropriate. 

You want your yeast to grow about 4X during fermentation, and that should take 12 to 24 hours to occur. If fermentation is that vigorous after 8ish hours that is a good indication that you overpitched.

Don't worry. I'm not saying the beer will be bad... Just that it will be even better with a properly sized pitch.
 
Thats what I figured. Dang. but it is good to see it fermenting so well, that it is.  So I just have to wait and hope it goes down. the lid didn't blow off it was coming out of the bubbler.  In my little experience of brewing time it blowoffs are caused by not enough air pressure (or fermentation pressure released). So I usually take the little red cap off of the bubbler and don't use it any more. 

Thank you for the info and i will check out those sites. 
Happy brewing 
 
Blowoff is perfectly normal.  Even when you get your pitching rate right, you may still have Blowoff issues. It will just be delayed by 24 hours or so.

Many people will use a Blowoff tube to give the kraussen somewhere to go. I'm on my phone... Just do a google search for "Blowoff tube" to see some examples. 
 
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