I'm in the midst of my second home brew and having some issues. It's an IPA and the OG was around 1.034, but the primary fermentation has plenty of blowoff. (I brewed this on Sunday afternoon). I'm currently using a hose to let it run into a kettle, but I'm curious if/when I should eventually put the small airlock back on to finish the primary. There is a ton of sludge and foam in the carboy right now. Any thoughts? Thanks!
you can put the airlock back on when you see that the krausen has begun to fall. It won't make a difference if you leave the blowoff tube on, but I replace asap so I can clean the tube hopefully before the sludge completely dries.
1.034 is very low for an IPA. In fact, it's nowhere near the style. Was your wort well-mixed when you measured the gravity? (I'm guessing partial boil, topped off with water?)
Yeah, I was a bit concerned about that. It was well-mixed, or at least I felt like it was. Should I take another measure before transferring to secondary to see if it's worth attempting to salvage?
I was also going to say that it is extremely low. Maybe post your recipe and it'll be easier to tell.
A gravity reading at this point won't really tell you what the OG was with much precision. Whatever you do, don't dump it unless there are obvious, intolerable off flavors. i.e. I would not dump just because OG may have been low.
DONT DUMP IT!!!!! Just keep going and see how the beer turns out, you can make a clone beer with different numbers that turns out great. RE: the tube. Just wait until you see stuff starting to fall back in or until foam stops going up the tube and you'll be good.
Right, once the krausen falls back away from the inlet to your tube it should be safe to put the airlock on. And I usually go ahead and take the tube itself off so that the action in the airlock is more visible. You mention the hose going into a kettle. Does the kettle have water in it to a level that the end of the hose is submerged? Just making sure. For jim's sake, let this beer ferment through and drink it! If the OG reading was accurate (which is suspect, but possible) and it only turns into a 3.5% 'hoppy beer' rather than the thing you expected, enjoy it, try to figure out what might have deviated with it, learn from it, and put it behind you. By no means should you dump a perfectly good beer. It may be the very best you've ever made! (better than the first anyway) Besides, that kind of shit will get you kicked right off of BA... Cheers and welcome to the fold.
