Looking for advice

This weekend, I'm getting ready to brew the biggest beer I've ever brewed. It's called opus 10. It's an imperial chocolate coffee stout. O.G. Is projected to be in the 1.095 range. I'm doing a yeast starter, and I'm worried about an explosion in my closet as it ferments. I use the 6 gallon buckets and the opening on the lid is, in my opinion, too small for a blowoff tube of any substantial size. Does the O.G. of a beer have any relation to the amount of Kraeusen?

cory11 said:

This weekend, I'm getting ready to brew the biggest beer I've ever brewed. It's called opus 10. It's an imperial chocolate coffee stout. O.G. Is projected to be in the 1.095 range. I'm doing a yeast starter, and I'm worried about an explosion in my closet as it ferments. I use the 6 gallon buckets and the opening on the lid is, in my opinion, too small for a blowoff tube of any substantial size. Does the O.G. of a beer have any relation to the amount of Kraeusen?

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No, it's more about the yeast and head space available. If you have a 3 piece airlock remove the center float and attach the tube to the inner pipe, its the same size tube that's used for siphoning and bottling, then insert the airlock as normal and you are good to go

Give it some Fermcap too, just in case.

And you probably know this, but big beers can get a really vigorous ferment going, which can cause the temp of the wort to rise a few more degrees than a average grav batch - just be ready to keep the temp under control. Cheers!

Another bucket option, Drill out the center round spot in the lid and use a larger blowoff tube. My LHBS sells rubber stoppers for the newly created hole for when not in use.
Also handy for collecting hydrometer samples without the need to remove the entire lid.

I really like that idea! To the home brew store!!!

After all my worrying, all is good. It fermented the most aggressive I've ever seen one ferment for about 18hours. Then like a light switch it was done. Thought it was a stuck fermentation, dumped some more yeast and checked the gravity the next day. It was down where it should be. I did notice the Kraeusen was only a couple inches hight though. Who knows. I can't wait to taste it in a month or two!

Cheers! Celebrate with a glass (or two) from the last batch!

Haha! The last batch of brew is long gone! Still sipping on some cider tho. It's finally tasting good after many many months.

Hahaha. Dude, I hate to say it, but you're playing with fire. You do not want a blown lid and beers that strong are quite capable of it. After my first blow and a couple hours of cleaning, I was on my way to the LHBS for a 6.5 gallon glass fermenter and a 1" blowoff tube. You can do a blowoff with a bucket, but that was my equal and opposite reaction in that case. I don't consider doing anything 1.070-1.080+ without it and have since enjoyed glass carboys so much that they're my only primary fermenters.

Glad you gottaway this time. I once had the confidence you do. Cheers!