I just made a 5 gallon batch of charlie's Honey Spruce Lager. Because I am fermanting at @ 70% I used a Kolsh lager yeast. When I sparged into my carboy (glass 5 gallon) I left a little room at the top. Last night (1st night) it went NUTS! I lost about 36oz of beer in my overflow!
Did I screw up?
Can I add a little extra water when I bottle?
Did I loose some flavor due to the overflow?
Any help would be great..............
A little help................
Moderator: slothrob
Clarification of the Problem
I am not sure if you screwed up because I am not sure exactly what you are saying here. You say you are brewing at 70% do you mean 70 degrees? Also was this your primary fermentation or secondary.
To rectify the problem you should first remove the airlock and run a tube from your stopper to a bucket of water until the fermentation cools off. Then you will need to re sanitize your airlock. You wouldn't have lost any flavor from the overflow (just beer). I don't think it would be a good idea to add 36oz of water because it will certainly affect your gravity. However, if you do decide to add water make sure you boil the water first and then cool it. I think you should just accept the loss as depressing as that may seem.
To rectify the problem you should first remove the airlock and run a tube from your stopper to a bucket of water until the fermentation cools off. Then you will need to re sanitize your airlock. You wouldn't have lost any flavor from the overflow (just beer). I don't think it would be a good idea to add 36oz of water because it will certainly affect your gravity. However, if you do decide to add water make sure you boil the water first and then cool it. I think you should just accept the loss as depressing as that may seem.
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if this was the primary...
If this was your primary fermentation, then you probably should not have been using a carboy as your fermentation vessel. Generally you use that as a secondary because it does not have enough headspace to be used as a primary, unless your are brewing less than 5 gallons. I'm going to assume that you meant degrees instead of percent, in which case I dont know what you meant. I think that would have been your problem though. You had a very active fermentation and lost some beer. Hey, it was only 3 beers, it could have been worse.
Invest in a 6.5 gallon carboy
I used to have the same problem with losing beer out the top. I didn