This was an airlock malfunction. A blueberry clogged the airlock mechanism, and I had wedged that airlock into the lid too tightly for the normal "projectile airlock" situation, so the entire lid blew off. The resulting bang was pretty incredible.
Anyway, I did about what any brewer could do to salvage a beer: I rinsed out the airlock mechanism a lot, I scraped away the overflowing foam from the fermenter, and I recapped with a clean airlock. Then I crossed my fingers and said a prayer.
Many of my brewer friends confide that their fruit beers have been "lambics" (open fermentation, no lid or airlock) for at least a fraction of their time due to similar causes. The best fruit beers I have sampled are lambics, so I'm actually not too worried about this beer.
It's been about 4 days since then, and the airlock stopped bubbling wildly about 3 days ago. Day after tomorrow I will show you how to move a beer from the primary fermenter to the secondary. It's really easy and only takes about half an hour, but requires two hands most of the time so hopefully I'll be able to get good photos.
Amanda
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