Since there was a thread recently talking about crappy brew days I thought I would start one about having great moments.
Here’s mine:
In any of my brews in the past I have only needed a blow off tube maybe once. I’ve brewed many beers with lots of different yeast and gravities ranging from 1.050 to 1.080. Krausens were always a few inches thick or so. Healthy but not over the top. The last few beers I never even bothered to put on the blow off tube.
Well my most recent brew I said “eh what the heck, let me put it on just in case”. 1.062 gravity IPA using WLP001. After 24 hours I had a couple inch thick krausen which is what I was used to seeing with US-05 (First time using WLP001) and I thought that was as high as it was going to get. Well 48 hours later, I check on it and lo and behold the entire 1 gallon of headspace as well as the 3 feet of blow off hose was caked in yeast residue.
So glad I decided to throw that on “just in case”.
Glad you avoided a volcano there, Matt, just goes to show that you never know for sure. For my part, I’d rather be pleasantly surprised by a blowoff tube being fully utilized than I would by yeast all over my walls and ceiling (don’t ask how I know this :oops: ). If I’m fermenting in the house, I pretty much always use a blowoff tube for at least the first three or four days, you know, just in case. Lately I’ve started fermenting under the house, which stays right between 61 and 63 degrees, so I’m not so concerned about blowoffs and the attending mess. It seems like fermentation is a lot better behaved at lower and more consistent temps.
I use a blowoff tube and anti-foam drops on +90% of my beers. Part of the reason is because I generally end up with 5.5 to 6 gallons of wort per 6.5 gal bucket fermenters I currently use.
I remember the first time I brewed a Belgian dark strong. IIRC it was with WLP 500, the Chimay yeast. Anyway, I just left it in a spare bedroom with the AC turned on in fairly warm weather. Just before I left for work the morning after I brewed, I decided at the last minute to wrap the two full 7-gallon fermenter buckets in clean sheets, even though they had at least a gallon worth of headspace.
When I returned home after my 8-hr shift, the lids had already violently blown off of the buckets due to gas build-up from yeast clogging the airlocks. The mess was mostly contained within the sheets. If I had not used them the ceiling and walls would have been badly spattered with yeast and fermenting wort.
Yes, thank God for small inspirations and a habit of research! Luckily, the beer still came out great.
