Fermentation with too small of a headspace?

[decoherent]

Hello, I was trying to look for this sort of dumb question, but couldn't find exactly what I was looking for!

I've pulled out my homebrew equipment after 7 years (!) in storage, and I thought I'd checked everything carefully, but with my nice starter culture growing along, I've discovered that the plastic pail I'd used as a primary has acquired a small hole in the bottom (I have no idea how). I don't have a way to get a new plastic pail in the next few days, but I do have two glass 5 gallon carboys...if I don't mind some exciting blowoff, is there any problem with using a primary with virtually no head space?

 

[decoherent]

Well, I can't edit my post...if it matters, the yeast I'm using is Wyeast's 3944 Belgian (http://www.wyeastlab.com/yeast-strain/belgian-witbier), which they say requires a 33% head space.

 

[Miraculix]

Nope. Better place them in the bathtub though

 

[waldoar15]

Pitch Lager yeast and ferment cold.

 

[TGFV]

Nope. Better place them in the bathtub though

Definitely second the bathtub brew method. The rest of your house may not support it (especially like if it is like my Scottish ale this weekend which was in there for 3 days) but it is much better than the rest of you house, walls, roof, cat...

Another method is to buy a bigger bucket (7gal fermentation bucket for a 5-6gal fermentation carboys works great) and put it in their with an open fermentation.

 

[Griffin495]

I'm assuming you are brewing a 5 gallon batch? If I were you, I'd split the batch in half into the 2 carboys in order to avoid a massive blowoff and a mess all over the place. 2.5 gallons in one and 2.5 gallons in the other. And depending on what you are brewing, you could treat each carboy as a separate brew and maybe dry hop one or add fruit or spices or a different yeast and end up with two different beers.

 

[passedpawn]

Prepare for a mess. I've been down this road. Some pictures from your's truly, for your amusement. End of video is what you're proposing.

 

[LostHopper]

My favorite time. Brewing with dogs. Been there.
Redbone or vizsla? My brew partner was a redbone.

I keep a one gallon glass jug for the times when I have some extra wort to ferment.

 

[passedpawn]

viz

 

[decoherent]

I'm assuming you are brewing a 5 gallon batch? If I were you, I'd split the batch in half into the 2 carboys in order to avoid a massive blowoff and a mess all over the place. 2.5 gallons in one and 2.5 gallons in the other. And depending on what you are brewing, you could treat each carboy as a separate brew and maybe dry hop one or add fruit or spices or a different yeast and end up with two different beers.

That's a good suggestion with using both carboys, thanks, I'll do that! I'm not going to do anything different, since I'm still trying to remember how all of this works, but that's a really easy solution for this run! I'll have to do a little juggling to use one of these as the secondary, but that's a problem for two weeks from now...

Prepare for a mess. I've been down this road. Some pictures from your's truly, for your amusement.

Oh, that looks exciting Out of curiosity, how much pressure do these actually manage to generate, anyway? If I were to do something like make a little twist tie cage to keep the stopper firmly in place, would it at least just come shooting out the tube?


Thanks for the advice, folks!

 

[stieg000]

Lots of pressure, enough to blow off the lid of a very good sealing bucket and spray the ceiling.

 

[xpops]

a blowoff tube with a large enough reservoir should help keep your mess down, providing you dont go the 2x carboy route.

 

[bigdawg86]

I plan on splitting a RIS batch into two carboys for my next brew as even having 2 gallons of headspace was not enough and suffered almost 1 gallon of beer loss due to blowoff.

 

[passedpawn]

That's a good suggestion with using both carboys, thanks, I'll do that! I'm not going to do anything different, since I'm still trying to remember how all of this works, but that's a really easy solution for this run! I'll have to do a little juggling to use one of these as the secondary, but that's a problem for two weeks from now...


Oh, that looks exciting Out of curiosity, how much pressure do these actually manage to generate, anyway? If I were to do something like make a little twist tie cage to keep the stopper firmly in place, would it at least just come shooting out the tube?


Thanks for the advice, folks!

Blowoff tube. Don't make a bomb. Carboys, regardless of material, aren't built for pressure.

 

[Miraculix]

The above and skip the secondary.

 

[Griffin495]

Skip the secondary. Thing of the past that the majority of people skip nowadays. More chance things will go wrong, no real benefits.

 

[MaxStout]

Scale the batch down to something smaller that will provide headspace from the beginning. Otherwise, you'll end up with a smaller batch anyway after the blowoff losses.

 

[decoherent]

Thanks again for the thoughts, folks. I did indeed use one of the carboys as a primary and then split it at the end, and that was a tremendous pain in the ass that I will never, ever repeat (for some reason, I did everything in that full-to-the-brim carboy, oxygenation (fountain) and all). Next time, yeast stays in the fridge for another week or so Also, read my old notes more carefully. I found a post-it that says "accidentally punched a hole in the bottom of the primary, don't forget to order a new one".