Recipe 3: Melomel of elderberries with star anise (continued) -Happybubbling, but...

Day two and now must is happily bubbling. But as I removed the bag covering it fermenter to protect it from light I found that the airlock was flooded. This is one of these things I could probably have predicted.... The surface of the must is about 4 cm from the lid but the rubber plug that is used for the airlock sticks about 2.5 cm into the fermeneter and this is apparently too close to the surface.

Well off with the lid and another 3.0 g of Fermaid K was added - that is now 5.0 g in total. I stirred the must and hoped that I could stir plenty of air into it. But it started foaming so much that I was afraid the it would overflow the fermenter. Instead of stirrring, I left it and let the foam level drop before I re-attached the lid and airlock.

It did not take more than a few hours before the lid was covered with foam that had moved up and out of the airlock. Cleaned it again and attached the airlock. 10 min later the airlock was full of foam again.

I spend most of the afternoon cleaning the lid and flushing the airlock untill I go so tired of it, that I had to re-think the set-up. And with a "pretty please with sugar on top", I borrowed my sons slush ice bottle :o). Now at least I can wait some hours before cleaning.

Few minutes later ...... hmm