Airlocks that suck

[jamis]

Has anybody had there airlock suck all the water back into the fermenter?
I have just encountered this problem with my air lock this morning, this time I used the bottle half filled with sanitised water method as it was a particularly vigorous fermentation, I changed the water in there about 3 times, except the last change of water I dont think I used sanitised solution as the bubbles and fermentation had finished .  This morning nearly all the water was gone, about a cup, the water in there was about 4 days old, so I,m thinking its probably going to be infected.
The fermenter was about 22 when I turned the heat pad off ( I have aluminium venting between the fermenter and the heat pad so its not in direct contact)  overnight was cold and in the morning the fermenter was down to about 10, I,m just wondering if some sort of  thermal contraction happened here, this is about my 8th  brew and  hasnt happened before, is this a winter phenomenon?

[studio1]

do you not put any sort of stopper on when dry hopping, cold conditioning etc?

[jamis]

Really!?, how many times have u done that and got away with it

[JoKing]

Nah - I don't do anything like that at all. Just use the same mouldy piece of tinfoil for up to a month at a time!

Once Poppy poked her fingers through it (her favourite thing to do now...) and poked tinfoil into the fermenting beer. She then continued to drool into the opening of the carboy for probably a few days. I didn't even notice that it was ripped open. I'd just check that it was still fermenting once a day (didn't think that the tinfoil would have been fucked up) Long story short - that same beer took out the last WBC. Longer story short... airlocks are overated!

I've been fermenting like this for close to 2 years now. Over 40 brews.

[jamis]

well well well, I am now well and truely discombobulated

[Jona Hjelmstrom]

Brew lagers in cold weather, lager yeast works at colder temperatures so you don't need a heating pad.
In warmer weather brew ales, ale yeast likes warmer temperatures.

[JR]

I just this morning discovered that the liquid from my blow of container is mostly missing. The beer is cold conditioning and went through a 20 degree change a few days ago. It was full of iodophor and whatever muck got blown off the top of the fermentation.
I might get away with it - or I might not.

[JR]

An additional question

would you drink 22 litres of beer that had 500mls of standard strength iodophor mixed into it?

I thought that if the iodophor has killed the yeast and the beer doesn't carb up in the bottle then its too strongly iodene to drink - if it does carb then it didnt kill the yeast then it wont kill me and I can drink it.

How does that reasoning sound? Would you drink it? Case swap anyone?

[warra48]

The way to solve airlock problems is to not use them in the first place.

I use either of two methods:

1. Clingwrap with the seal from the lid used as a leccy band to hold it in place.
2. Blow off tube. I use quite a large tube, and have drilled a new hole in the lid to fit the tube into a larger grommet. The tube sits in a 2 litre bottle only half filled. In my case, I can't see that normal contraction of the liquid or the gas above my brew can ever be sufficient to suck up the liquid all the way up the tube from the bottle.

[Sparky]

I use an airlock at start of fermentation when wort temp can drop 1 or 2 deg after run off and then once fermentation is away I change to a blow off tube into an old milk bottle filled with metabisulphate solution. When fermentation slows I change back to the airlock before the brew cools.