Getting a tight seal on a blow off tube

You would think that in a town of 250K I'd be able to find some clear vinyl tubing that fits my Better Bottle. However, the closest I'm able to get is about 1/2" too thin. It just rests inside the carboy. Is it necessary to have a tight seal on the blow off tube to the carboy? And any suggestions on how to do so?

Or am I worrying about this too much?

yeah, you want a good seal so that air can't get back in...I suppose worst case, some duct tape.

Definitley need a tight seal in the event you do have blow off. Otherwise the tube really isn't doing its job in directing the blowoff into your bucket.

As for getting it to fit? You could take a strip of white cloth...maybe a tee-shirt, cut it into a 1 or 2 inch wide strip, soak it in a sanitizer and then wrap it around the tip of the tube to make it bigger and then slide it snug into place.

There is not enough pressure to get through the fabric, but you'd want to make sure it is sanitized and when you remove to check your beer, good idea to re-clean it or use a new strip.

I had the same issue getting a nice snug fit of the blow off tube to the BB closure. I found that not all of the 1/2 inch tube is exactly the same size. Some fit the closure quite tightly, while others are loose. If you can find the snug one great. If not, try heating the end of the tube with a heat gun and force something (round) that is a tight fit into the end of the tube. Let it cool, remove the object and check the fit in the closure. I was able to customize the tube to get a good seal. BTW, did you try a HD for the tubing?

Yep, I tried Home Despot. My brewing needs won over my boycott of that place.

Thanks for the tips!

I found my tubing at the Ace hardware store, in the plumbing dept. They have lots of different tubing with various ID and OD sizes. You can take the BB with you, and try them. If it's very snug, that's good.

Thos orange cap things fit nicely on a better bottle and then you can run a hose of one of the spigot things on top. Its not a huge hose I think like 3/8 or 1/2 fits it, thats what I use and it works great.

Another option is a coupler thing that has two different sized end I found some at lowes one end fits on the outside neck of the bottle and tightens with a clamp and the other en is smaller that the hose fits into and then tighten with a clamp

Those work for general blow-offs, but I had trouble with a higher gravity batch blowing that off, the smaller diameter tubing couldn't take the pressure. A carboy hood tied down with some string (or twine or nylon cord) would hold nicely though.

You are not alone. I think the opening is about 1 5\8 and I could not find tubing of that size. I just bought a rubber stopper and drilled it out for my 1 1\4 tube.

Maybe you could use a heat gun to soften up the tubing, then try to slid the tube over the top of the BB.