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Swapping out my family's crock for a trendy fermenter was a HUGE mistake.
I grew up watching my mom ferment cabbage in a heavy stone crock with just a cloth tied over it, and it always turned out perfect. That old method let the ferment breathe so we never dealt with pressure build-ups or messes. Last fall, I decided to upgrade to a fancy glass jar kit with a sealed lid and a little airlock thing. I thought it would be cleaner and more modern, you know? But after about ten days, the pressure got so bad that the lid popped off and sprayed kraut juice all over my kitchen ceiling. The cloth cover never did that because it allowed gases to escape slowly and safely. Now I'm back to using the crock, and my ferments are trouble-free again. If you're thinking about switching to those new kits, maybe stick with what works from the past. Trust me, cleaning briny liquid off your walls is NO fun.
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patb656mo ago
You ever forget to put water in the airlock? Asking for a friend who definitely didn't do that and then had to repaint a wall. I'm a huge fan of the old crock method too, mostly because my track record with anything involving gadgets and instructions is real bad.
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jordan_lee6mo ago
Did you maybe have the airlock put together wrong or forget to add water to it? Those little airlocks are literally made to let gas out without letting air in, so a big explosion shouldn't happen. It sounds like the gear might have been set up in a way that accidentally trapped the pressure instead.
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victor_jenkins6mo ago
My first cider batch taught me this the hard way when I used a dry airlock. jordan_lee is right about the design, but if you forget the water, it does nothing to stop air from getting in. Pressure builds up fast when fermentation gets going, and a sealed lid will turn your carboy into a bomb. Always fill the airlock with sanitizer instead of water for a better seal. I learned to leave a little extra headspace in the fermenter to give the foam somewhere to go. A simple blow-off tube setup can prevent most of these messy explosions.
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