3/8" tubing enough for a blowoff?

It's late, the stores are closed and my IPA decided to take off. I've been watching the krausen creep up little by little all day. It dropped off at dinner time then by 9pm it was within an inch of the stopper on my better bottle. I've never brewed a beer with an SG higher than 1.050 prior to this 1.062 guy and used liquid yeast for the first time. Wasn't expecting this.

Out of concern I took the top two pieces off a 3-piece airlock and shoved the only thing I had available in there, some 3/8" tubing. Is this a reliable blow off or should I just pull the stopper and let it overflow into the cooler it's sitting in rather than blowing?

I use 3/8" with good luck, but if it is really vigorous, any size diameter can clog with krausen.

Thanks. Here's hoping it's enough. I don't feel like cleaning up a mess.

Keep an eye on it. Tubing doesn't tend to clog as easily as an airlock, but you never know.

I've only had one blow up on me. A 1.068 IPA with no blow off tube, and I left for a trip the day after pitching. Oops.

3/8 here...I've even had it creep a few feet down the tube once without a clog...that was an interesting experience!

If you can, set your fermenter in a plastic tub (laundry tub or something like that) and then just remove the airlock and let it spill if it wants. Cleanup should be easy and with that vigorous of a ferment nothing bad is going to climb in there. When it slows down, wipe off the top with sanitizer and put the airlock back in.

Just an update for anyone interested:

Blowoff was needed. The 3/8" tube has worked well. I placed the better bottle in a cooler I had downstairs. The tube has all kinds of crap in it and the measuring cup I have filled with water is now murky brown because of said crap. I've taken the tube off twice today and flushed it with water to avoid a clog. I figure if it does clog the tube is loose in the airlock, and the stopper is loose in the bottle to avoid too much pressure build up. I wasted way too much time listening to/watching the blowoff tube do its thing today

Wyeast American Ale is pretty impressive. This stuff has been fermenting like mad for 36 hours. I haven't seen anything this vigorous with any of the dry yeasts I've used but nothing has had an OG anywhere near this one.

I once ran a 3/8 tube from a carboy cap and it exploded in the middle of the night. Krausen all over the ceiling, picture frame, girlfriend's coat on the coat rack.

Woke up my girlfriend, who was not a happy camper when she helped me clean up. I live in a small city studio with carboys reasonably close to my bed, so I lucked out when the explosion occurred in the opposite direction!

I have a dunkelweizen thumping out yeast through a 3/8" blowoff hose right now. I filled a 6.5 gallon Carboy to the 5.5 gallon mark. I HOPE there won't be any problems.

The 2 times I've had a yeast mortar hit the ceiling both involved dry hops.

I use a 3/8 tube on 1.065 and lower with both straight dry, rehydrated and starter White Labs. They frequently get a little into the tubing....2 ft long into a wine bottle that fits nicely in the corner of my Avanti superconductor fridge that I use for fermentation chamber. I use 1/2 on higher OG brews. Switched to blowoff tubes after I finally had one blow and make a mess in my fermenter. It took a while to get used to the fact that there will be some creep as long as I fill my better bottles as full as I do