Wasted $35 on a fancy airlock and wish I just stuck with a simple one

I bought a high end airlock for my 5 gallon carboy that claimed it never needed refilling. Worked fine for 2 weeks until the krausen pushed up and clogged the whole thing, blew the stopper right off. Lost about 3 gallons of a solid apple cider batch that I had fermenting for 18 days. Anyone else had those overhyped gadgets fail on them at the worst time?

2 comments

2 Comments

hernandez.morgan1mo ago

Blame the gear all you want but sounds like user error to me. If you're getting krausen that violent in an 18 day ferment you should've been using a blowoff tube from day one regardless of the airlock. Those fancy gadgets work fine when you set them up right and actually check your fermentation activity.

spencer_chen61mo ago

Wait, 18 days? That's the kind of blowoff you get in the first 48 hours, not almost three weeks in. Something is definitely off with that fermentation if it's still that active at day 18. I'd be checking for infection or a stalled ferment that suddenly kicked back to life.