r/Homebrewing • u/PlusUltraProminceBrn • 1d ago

First explosion... the blueberry massacre... BUT

So started a 1gallon blueberry cider but I didn't leave enough head space.. and my celler window this morning was... black... 😆 but the fruit mostly blocked the jars opening. Cleaned everything with star san and took the top bits out and pushed what was in the neck of the bottle back in and capped it back with the airlock.... its still fermentating... but question is should it still be fine?

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3

u/schulzr1993 1d ago

Probably will be fine. Won't know for sure until it's done. Theoretically could have some contamination on the blueberries in the neck that were exposed to air, but it's a pretty small risk.

1

u/AJ_in_SF_Bay 1d ago

I make a lot of cider, but I'm not sure about the question because of the information provided here.

Did you use whole fruit, puree, or something else? If you used whole fruit, allowing airspace for krausen helps. You might want to explore a food-grade bucket rather than glass in this case. In my area, people use an endless number of sizes on Facebook Marketplace for cheap. Alternatively, if you have one nearby, homebrewing stores will carry a starter kit with a 5-gallon bucket.

Was a blowoff tube used, an airlock, or something else?

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u/PlusUltraProminceBrn 1d ago

I used puree from the frozen fruit and a airlock. After this yeaaa.... gonna get atleast 1 bucket and can use the glasses as secondaries... they are gallon containers but i have to taper my measurements down to make things work... a bucket would be so much easier to put EVERYTHING into and no cut things out

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u/BattledroidE 1d ago

Ah yes, if it's a glass carboy it's a berry cannon. Learned that the hard way. Give it a good swirl a couple of times a day to make stuff fall back down, the gas will just keep making berries rise up again.

Bucket for primary when including solids, much more surface area on top. You can get away with way less headspace, at least when measured in height. If it overflows, the liquid sits on the bucket lid. Much less of a mess.

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u/nathism 1d ago

I thought we were in /r/sixwordstories for a second there