High Gravity Beer - Blow off tube problem

I am making a barley wine with an approx. 1.108 OG. I have 2 yeast starters going that I made last night. I'm waiting for my girlfriend to finish cooking dinner so that I can have the kitchen to brew. However, when I was waiting, I started playing with my new blow off tube. I tried to put it in the hole where the air lock goes and it fits, except it doesn't seem that it's air-tight to me. It slides in way too easily. So my question: will using an air lock for this beer cause my 6.5 gallon bucket to explode?

Have any Teflon tape? You can wrap a little if that around the tube to make it a little thicker.

Keep the temp down for the first 2-3 days; around 60F if you can. That should help ward off the krausen blow. Cheers!!!

With a beer that size and a double pitch of yeast, I'd get real ready for a gushing airlock or worse. If you are doing this in a bucket, I take it you are pushing the tube through the rubber gasket, or have you removed the gasket to do this?

I want to put it through the gasket, but it is too small I guess. I don't have any teflon tape...

Sorry for taking so long to reply, I ate dinner and started my boil!

And my neighbor has tephlon tape so I will use that! Thanks!

Fix: Instead of putting the blow off tube in the gasket with tephlon tape, I removed 2 of the 3 pieces of my air lock and it seems to fit right in there. Anyone else use blow off tubes this way?

I did a Russian Imperial Stout a little while ago with an OG of about 1.104. I used an airlock and the bucket exploded in my closet within about 6 hours of pitching. Fortunetly my lid seal was a little old and it just ran over the side and didn't completely blow up. I was originally thinking that because I was doing a 5 gal batch in 6.5 gal bucket I would be fine. Not so. I did some significant aeration and used big starter so i think that had something to do with it.

I would try and figure out the blow off tube if you can. Good luck

bgrayson726 said:

Fix: Instead of putting the blow off tube in the gasket with tephlon tape, I removed 2 of the 3 pieces of my air lock and it seems to fit right in there. Anyone else use blow off tubes this way?

Click to expand...

Yep