carboy vs. bucket... blow off tube... oh look all my yeast is in a bucket.

I've been trying to start some higher gravity beers so I'm either using a good yeast starter or pitching yeast from a previous brew.

my question is I'm getting a strong initial reaction so I getting a good population of yeast only if I'm using a carboy it either blows the top or if I use a blow off tube I find a huge yeast population in the bucket of water next to the carboy. this is the yeast that I feel I need since the first batch of higher gravity beer I did ended up with a 1.03 finish gravity and is way too sweet.

the batch i brewed this past friday is barely bubbling now and I just want to toss the whole batch and say screw it. why spend another month messing with it only to have lots of residual sugars.

should I just not use a 6 gallon carboy or find something with more head room? I kind of like using carboys cause I can siphon the beer to a 5 gallon carboy without really introducing as much air.

please help.

Soooo. Why not just use a bucket?

There is growing support that a fair amount of blow off is actuially benificial to the beer stability and flavor.

use some fermcap to keep the fermentation under control. Also if you end up with a beer that has too many residual sugars you can rack onto a fresh yeast cake to try to bring it down more.

Exactly how much beer are you putting in your six gallon carboy?

I doubt you're losing much yeast through the blowoff tube, compared to the billions that are staying in the wort.

Do you know what the attenuation (percentage) is? Is it close to what the yeast is supposed to attenuate at? Are you doing all grain batches? If so, what temp are you doing your saccharification rest (which determines the ratio of fermentable and unfermentable sugars)?

five gallons. this never seemed to be a problem before I started doing yeast starters for higher gravity beers, but my understanding is I need more yeast to convert the larger quantity of sugars so I don't see how having a bunch of yeast blow off would be helpful.

so fermcap. I just checked the thread about it and it sounds like my new best friend.

Frodo said:

...what temp are you doing your saccharification rest (which determines the ratio of fermentable and unfermentable sugars)?

Click to expand...

I have a side question here. Is there a formula to determine the ratio of fermentables to unfermentables at various saccharification rest temperatures?

Frodo said:

I doubt you're losing much yeast through the blowoff tube, compared to the billions that are staying in the wort.

Do you know what the attenuation (percentage) is? Is it close to what the yeast is supposed to attenuate at? Are you doing all grain batches? If so, what temp are you doing your saccharification rest (which determines the ratio of fermentable and unfermentable sugars)?

Click to expand...

I'm doing extract.

WLP023 Burton Ale Yeast
From the famous brewing town of Burton upon Trent, England, this yeast is packed with character. It provides delicious subtle fruity flavors like apple, clover honey and pear. Great for all English styles, IPA's, bitters, and pales. Excellent in porters and stouts.
Attenuation: 69-75%
Flocculation: Medium
Optimum Fermentation Temperature: 68-73°F
Alcohol Tolerance: Medium

mightynintendo said:

I have a side question here. Is there a formula to determine the ratio of fermentables to unfermentables at various saccharification rest temperatures?

Click to expand...

I don't think it's as easy as a simple formula. Sorry if I made it seem like you could calculate a "ratio". There's a full discussion and charts about enzymes, starch, pH, and what types of sugars you're going to get out of the mash at various temperatures and various pH in Palmer's "How to Brew". Just for example, if you mash at 150 F compared to 154 F with an equivalent pH, theoretically you'll get more fermentable sugars.

Chepi said:

I'm doing extract.

WLP023 Burton Ale Yeast
From the famous brewing town of Burton upon Trent, England, this yeast is packed with character. It provides delicious subtle fruity flavors like apple, clover honey and pear. Great for all English styles, IPA's, bitters, and pales. Excellent in porters and stouts.
Attenuation: 69-75%
Flocculation: Medium
Optimum Fermentation Temperature: 68-73°F
Alcohol Tolerance: Medium

Click to expand...

Check out: http://www.whitelabs.com/beer/strains_wlp023.html

There is a FAQ section at the bottom where they address a case of low attenuation with a high gravity beer (1.078) with the WLP023 yeast - and they do mention loss of yeast from the blow-off tube. To quote the FAQ: "Burton Ale yeast is so top cropping that a good portion of the yeast could have been lost that way." They then state: "Even so, the best way to speed it up now would be to transfer it into another container. That helps mix it around and break out CO2 that could be repressing the yeast. But make sure you transfer over the yeast cake as well, it is easy to leave behind and this transfer is to spurn the yeast forward, not to separate it out. If you can’t transfer, at least shake the carboy for 2 minutes to rouse the yeast and break out gas."

But I don't know if I'd be shaking the carboy for 2 minutes... I think you'd be oxidizing the beer if you did that.

Ferment colder to slow down the yeasts initial exuberance or use less volume in your carboy.

Thanks, that picture will be helpful to someone down the line on a search.

i made one in an emergency on video

I've found a number of good ways to go with this. One is to buy a 6.5 gallon carboy - but, for me, they are a bit expensive ($45) when I have 3 already. Another is to do a good job at backing into the amount of sparge water to use (I AG brew, btw). I know absorption of grain, and I know how much wort I boil out during the brewing. Then I back into the sparge water, given I know how much mash water I used. So I end up with 4.5 gallons +- in fermentor. At this time you are left with 3 choices: settle for the 4.5 gallons, fill with water after the initial blowoff (will NOT hurt your brew imo), or one way I've not tried is to save some wort from the boil and add it back at this time. Has worked for me.

conpewter said:

use some fermcap to keep the fermentation under control. Also if you end up with a beer that has too many residual sugars you can rack onto a fresh yeast cake to try to bring it down more.

Click to expand...

+1.

I started doing 1 gallon starters on a stir plate in 1 gallon jugs with FermCap. That leaves less than 2" of the neck for head. It fits fine.

It's cheap, too. My $4 bottle has lasted through at least 5 brew days and at least as many starters, plus all the fermentations I add it to. Still half of it left.

In fact, it's probably cheaper than the paper towels you'd use to mop up krausen blowing through the airlock.

It's been awhile since any input on this topic. I also noticed a decent amount of yeast traveling through my blow-off tube. Basic setup includes a 3 gallon glass carboy, orange carboy cap with blow-off tube into water filled growler. Brewing a sweet stout using Wyeast 1056 American Ale yeast. 0.25 gallon starter at 1.040 SG that goes to completion, oxygenated with pure oxygen using diffuser stone 2 micron. I would not consider 1056 yeast to be a top fermenting strain. Low and behold through, I found a decent amount of yeast in my growler. At the beginning of rapid fermentation, I actually had a blow out in my blow out growler!! not a fun mess to clean up. Who knows how much yeast I lost during this process, as I did not collect it- I just dumped it and swapped out growlers. I then noticed the large deposit of yeast in the next growler after only 1 day and that got me thinking- How do I keep yeast from leaving the main fermentation? I used "The Googler" and found something called the Burton Union System.

http://byo.com/stories/item/351-build-a-burton-union-system-projects

This system acts as a gravity feed for blow off. As the blow off foam travels into the top container, it constitutes back into liquid and the yeast settles out. It then travels down through the bottom tube and back into the main fermentation.

I won't implement this system as I have a thermowell in the second port of the carboy cap, but for those struggling with heavy yeast blow out this system could prove very useful.

From here I plan on harvesting yeast that blow off, and not to reuse but to see how many ounces of yeast slurry actually leave the main fermentation.

Best of luck