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Surly Furious and blow-off tubing?

Northern Brewer General
#1

Greetings. I just ordered the Surly Furious extract kit and have been wondering about needing blow-off tubing. I currently use a 7.5 gallon fermentation bucket (from a wine making kit) as my primary fermentation and typically rack to a 6 gallon carboy. After reading some of the comments on the kit, it appears some have had some krausen explosions. I don’t currently have any blow-off tubing, but figured I could use the tubing from my racking cane and attach it to the airlock ‘center post’ and run it into a bucket of sanitizing solution if I needed to.

Do you think that the 7.5 gallon bucket would have enough room to not worry about blow-off tubing, or should I just go ahead and attach it for the first several days of active fermentation? Will be using a 2000ml yeast starter, so I’m leaning towards the ‘safe’ route if it will fit.

Also plan to initially rack from the bucket to a carboy and then rack back to the bucket (after cleaning of course) for the dry hopping after reading that many people had their muslin bags get stuck in the carboy.

I appreciate any insight you’ll be able to lend. Thanks!

#2

With bigger beers a blow off system is a good idea. I use one for every batch through the whole process. It is called piece of mind. By the time you could write your post and read the responses, you could set one up, so why not?

Also, just dry hop in the primary? I have done this lately with good results

#3

Pretty much what I was thinking in regards to the blow-off, just have never set one up in the last couple years of brewing (around 30 batches).

I may do the dry hopping in the primary and then rack to the secondary afterwards like you mentioned. I’m sure it will be easier that way.

Thanks.

#4

I’d normally agree but this kit has an extraordinary amount of dry hops. I’ve done the beer (or variations of it) a few times. If you just add the hops to the primary you’ll lose a fair bit of beer to the hops, even after a good amount of cold crashing. It is a bit better if you use a muslin bag but Cobrabit is correct, if you do that in a normal carboy it is a real PIA to get the bag back out.

If I were to do it again I’d do primary in the 7.5 gallon bucket (with a blow off tube just in case) and then add the hops in there after fermentation. I know you’d lose some beer but with a large bucket and a good chunk of cold crashing it’d be reasonable. If you can’t cold crash I suggest using the muslin bag.

#5

Don’t have the room to cold crash, but did get an extra muslin bag for the dry hops. I’m sure I’ll lose a fair amount of liquid to the hops regardless, so I’m prepared for that.

I’m not normally an IPA drinker and always thought they were too bitter for me. That was until after I started trying different styles when I began homebrewing and recently tried a local brewery’s IPA that used a lot of late addition hops. Had a great aroma and flavor from the hops and was pretty balanced. It only came in 22 ounce bottles, so by the end of the bottle, it had warmed up to the point where the bitterness was more noticeable and I struggled a little to finish it.

When looking around for kits to try at home, I saw that while Furious has a ton of hops, a lot of them added more to the aroma/flavor than just straight bitterness with the late additions and dry hopping, so I figured I’d give it a try, especially if I use 12-16 oz bottles to keep it colder longer. I may only be able to drink one or two at a time, but sounds interesting.

Now I say that before I try it. Based on the comments for the kit, I may actually become a hophead afterwards and run through this batch quick.

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