When you get more liquid than you anticipated

[El Nino]

And you know for sure there'll be some (or a lot) of blowoff. What do you do? Just curious haha.

I just made a grapefruit IPA which looks like it'll be awesome (OG 1.070), but ended up with much less headspace than usual. Day 1 of fermentation and it looks like it's already near the top, lol.

I've usually always went with the blowoff tube and things always worked out, but I've always been nervous going that route. So far it's been all good, but in the past, the ales that needed the blowoff have been lower grav (usually my brews that all needed the blowoff were 1.055 and under)

 

[Jag75]

Sounds like a bigger fermenter might be in your future lol. When I use my 5 gallon carboy I have to use a blow off, unless I put a little less in . I have a 6.5 carboy and a 7.9 fastferment and never needed a blow off with those.

 

[El Nino]

Sounds like a bigger fermenter might be in your future lol. When I use my 5 gallon carboy I have to use a blow off, unless I put a little less in . I have a 6.5 carboy and a 7.9 fastferment and never needed a blow off with those.

Perhaps, but I don't have an outdoor setup, so I've had to stick with 3 gallon carboys and doing 2.5g batches. Usually I don't need a blowoff tube with higher grav brews (end up getting less liquid), so this time i compensated and added a couple more cups to the mash. ended up with a carboy with very little headspace lol. At least I should have more than 26 beers when it comes to bottle time though.

 

[Gnomebrewer]

Freeze some of the wort.
Use it to prime your bottles or kegs (re-boil then chill it again first) - it's called 'speise'.

Or you could take some out to ferment separately (small 1/2 to 1 gallon water containers work well) with a different yeast as an experiment.

 

[DVCNick]

I would just throw on the blowoff tube and have more beer at the end. I've missed volume high before (more than once actually) and done exactly that.
(what makes you nervous about a blowoff tube?)

 

[kh54s10]

Blow off tube. Or bigger fermentation vessel. Or both.

You also need to address why you ended up with more wort than anticipated. You should know your boil off rate. If you do you should get small variations on the amount of wort collected. If you don't your OG is going to vary also. I calculated my boil off rate years ago. I get a variance of 1/2 gallon plus or minus. So my target of about 5.25 gallons into the fermenter and 5 gallons packaged varies only from 4.5 gallons to 5.5 gallons in the end. It is usually much closer to 5 gallons packaged.

 

[Soulshine2]

I would just throw on the blowoff tube and have more beer at the end. I've missed volume high before (more than once actually) and done exactly that.
(what makes you nervous about a blowoff tube?)

this suggestion of a blowoff tube to get more beer ....
I place the end of my blowoff into a jug with enough starsan to cover the end so it wont suck air back in the fermenter. Id rather not drink star san ale...
I would rather save the extra wort for priming later ,which has been the case more often than not.

 

[DVCNick]

Ah...
My blowoff tube is way too long to get any suckback at room temps.

 

[Soulshine2]

Ah...
My blowoff tube is way too long to get any suckback at room temps.

Oh , I certainly agree with you on that. I just keep a blowoff in for the first couple days of high kraeusen anyway,after that (48 hrs?) I put the regular 3 piece airlock in it.

 

[bracconiere]

you'll only get more beer if you bottle....otherwise with kegs you get 5 gals a piece....but unless you want to dump it back in the boil kettle, and boil it longer, blowoff

 

[DVCNick]

What I've done recently is bottle off down to 5 gallons then keg the rest.
I'd rather hit the volume correctly though... in fact I think focusing on that is one of the next things I'll be working on in earnest.

I've learned a couple things doing this too. At first I thought the bottled version of the same beer finished a little sweeter. Side by side taste test though, I'd be real hard pressed to tell any difference in the taste.

Side by side comparison also drives home the point that I haven't figured out the trick to getting the carbonation to stay in the beer coming out of the keg. Just doubled my line length to 20ft, hopefully that takes care of it. At least according to the calculators, it should more than eliminate line length as an issue.

And like soulshine, I just put the regular airlock back on after the krausen starts to recede.

 

[El Nino]

(what makes you nervous about a blowoff tube?)

Just an irrational fear that the tube will somehow get clogged and I'll come home to an exploded carboy haha. Though I haven't heard of anything like that happening, and everytime I had blowoff everything was ok.

Blow off tube. Or bigger fermentation vessel. Or both.

You also need to address why you ended up with more wort than anticipated. You should know your boil off rate. If you do you should get small variations on the amount of wort collected. If you don't your OG is going to vary also. I calculated my boil off rate years ago. I get a variance of 1/2 gallon plus or minus. So my target of about 5.25 gallons into the fermenter and 5 gallons packaged varies only from 4.5 gallons to 5.5 gallons in the end. It is usually much closer to 5 gallons packaged.

I added a few cups to what I usually add to, pre-mash. When I do a higher gravity beer, I of course get more trub losses, so to compensate for that I added more water. I don't like getting less than 24 bottles in a batch

 

[eric19312]

you'll only get more beer if you bottle....otherwise with kegs you get 5 gals a piece....but unless you want to dump it back in the boil kettle, and boil it longer, blowoff

Keg 5 gallons and bottle the rest. Use carb drops or domino dots for the bottles. You will be happy to remember you have those when the keg kicks.

 

[eric19312]

For a too full fermentor Fermcap-S can be a big help. I routinely ferment 16 gallons in my 60 L Spiedel. It is full almost to the top. Fermcap or 5-star Defoamer works great. Note the correct dose though the Fermcap S is much more dilute than the 5-star product.

 

[kh54s10]

Just an irrational fear that the tube will somehow get clogged and I'll come home to an exploded carboy haha. Though I haven't heard of anything like that happening, and everytime I had blowoff everything was ok.



I added a few cups to what I usually add to, pre-mash. When I do a higher gravity beer, I of course get more trub losses, so to compensate for that I added more water. I don't like getting less than 24 bottles in a batch

Getting a blow off tube clogged, depends on the tube. I have heard of small tubes attached to the center post of a 3 piece airlock getting clogged. Especially if the cross piece on the end of the airlock is not cut off. A 1 1/4" (?) tube in the mouth of a glass carboy should have an extremely low chance of getting clogged.

So you added water. I guess you added too much. You need to take any added water into account when coming up with a recipe, otherwise you are diluting the beer.

Keep working on your water amounts. You will dial it in. You should not be getting a huge difference in trub loss. Even large doses of hops will settle eventually, The most I have lost to trub in an IPA as opposed to low hop beer is about 1/2 gallon in a 5 gallon batch. I often bag hops when there are a lot so that I don't get too much trub.

 

[Smellyglove]

Never happens to the extent it would get to a mess in the fermentor, maybe a few DL off, but that's it. If it would happen I'd just dump it if I see it would become a "hassle" during fermentation due to popped lid, a general mess out the airlock, or stuck airlock. I don't want to work extra just for a few more pints of that one beer.

 

[bracconiere]

Keg 5 gallons and bottle the rest. Use carb drops or domino dots for the bottles. You will be happy to remember you have those when the keg kicks.

i don't own any bottles or even a wand.....but i do keep 6 kegs in the fridge, with two taps! and when i go somewhere, a 1 liter soda bottle or three filled from the kegs works for me.....

 

[El Nino]

Getting a blow off tube clogged, depends on the tube. I have heard of small tubes attached to the center post of a 3 piece airlock getting clogged. Especially if the cross piece on the end of the airlock is not cut off. A 1 1/4" (?) tube in the mouth of a glass carboy should have an extremely low chance of getting clogged.

So you added water. I guess you added too much. You need to take any added water into account when coming up with a recipe, otherwise you are diluting the beer.

Keep working on your water amounts. You will dial it in. You should not be getting a huge difference in trub loss. Even large doses of hops will settle eventually, The most I have lost to trub in an IPA as opposed to low hop beer is about 1/2 gallon in a 5 gallon batch. I often bag hops when there are a lot so that I don't get too much trub.

Thanks. I added water before the mash, so i just started off with more. I don't think it's too diluted since my OG was 1.070 But yes I probably added too much. My immediate thoughts after racking was "well this is going to blow over, no question about it" lol.

I'm not using an airlock, I'm using a 5/16 IW tubing straight from the bung hole into a starsan container. I should maybe look into the 1 1/4" tube, that just seems monster. Then again like you said probably a near zero chance of clogging haha.