Blowoff Tube?

Hi all-

Haven't been on this site in forever! Had to take a hiatus from brewing for a while (college, what a drag right?). Anyways, I've always brewed pale ales and a couple brown ales, but I want to try Ed Wort's Bee Cave Hefe. I've never needed a blowoff tube, but I here hefe's can be a little aggressive during fermentation. My LHBS is a bit of a drive away, so my question is whether I should make the drive and get one or will I be safe just going with a standard airlock?

if your airlock still has the plastic V type thing on the bottom grind it off to open up the hole a bit. you could then hook a hose up to the inside of the airlock. unless you have hops in there that hole is big enought not to clog.. you could even poke bigger holes in your airlock lid but then you can get flies in there.. i'd go with the hose on airlock.

You can also probably get the right size hose and stick it through the stopper. Only my second batch but I'm glad I went with a blow off tube this time.


black imperial ipa by Glamisduner, on Flickr



I filled the growler(1/2 gallon carboy) about 1/3 full of starsan solution. Event though I have emptied it 3 times now It still filled up and overflowed twice, gotta clean up the freezer once it settles down a bit more.

Lots of hops shooting out the top into the growler, it smells great when I dump it down the drain, but also makes me sad.

Wow, that's some wicked fermentation! Just a newbie question: I've never used the blowoff tube before, but can it be just jammed through the small hole in the top of your fermentation bucket or does it really only work with a carboy? Thanks in advance.

Yes can just jam it in the bung. Thats what I do and it has always worked well for me except one time the darn thing kept getting clogged so I just removed the lid placed it back on the bucket but didn't seal it. Once aggressive fermentations settled down I sealed the lid and the blow off tube kept up no problem. But that was just one time.