Tank overflowed help

[zadvocate]

First time using a 110 L variable volume tank. I put the bladder lid on this morning and I came home to a lid covered in wine. I’m sure the change in temperature cause the wine to expand and go up through the airlock. I readjusted it up a little bit above the must. My question is, is there anything else I should do to address this? I’m trying to do an Extended maceration and want to leave it alone for a couple weeks.

 

[NorCal]

I use the one way silicon bungs. If it overflows a little bit, I just clean it up and leave the lid and airlock alone. Don’t use the bubbler type airlock, it will just draw oxygen in on the cold cycle.

 

[zadvocate]

I’ll look into that, I thought I adjusted it up above the must high enough but again this morning woke up to a pool of wine on the lid.

 

[GreginND]

This seems to be more of a problem with the smaller tanks (300L and smaller). floating the lid and pumping up the seal tends to create quite a bit of back pressure onto the wine to push the wine up through the airlock. It is a little tricky, but I try to hold the lid a little above the wine as I am pumping up the seal so that the wine just comes up to the airlock hole. If it is actively fermenting, I would set the lid an inch or so above the wine.

 

[zadvocate]

Thanks, I kind of figured that out after the fact. I set it too low and the build up of CO2 from continued fermentation caused it to push up on the lid and wine to come out the bubbler. I have a bung hopefully arriving tomorrow. I have raised it up a bit more and so far so good. thanks for your responses.

 

[wxtrendsguy]

I ferment in 1000L VC tanks and I actually inflate the bladder with the lid completely off and then set it on top of the tank. The inflated bladder keeps it from falling inside and well off the surface of the wine. The whole headspace fills with boatloads of CO2 so no need to worry about O2 exposure. Matter of fact if its really cranking along you can take the top right off and blow a fan on it to cool it off some. We often pump half the tank volume to another tank during active fermentation with a SG around 1.06 or 1.07 and then return it so that the wine gets some aeration to keep the yeast happy and cool the temp if need be...

Bring the lid down close when getting down to a SG <1.0 and once it goes still and SG stops dropping for 24 hours at 0.996 or less, drop the lid right on it and close it up tight. If a little squirts out sop it up.