Lossing beer at during fermentaion ...

We are lossing about 1/2 a gallon of beer during the first vigorous stage of fermentaion. The Hef and Abbey Ale's strains are the worst.

We have a blowoff tube from the carboy to catch bucket. But we think we just need a bigger fermentor. I thought maybe rigging a tube that allowed lots of "head room" - think clear Acrylic tube that was maybe 3" in diameter that attached to the top of tge carboy and went up 5 feet. That woudl give more room for the foam and craziness to blow into and then "hopefully" fall back into the carboy for bottling later.

Currently is blows off into a bucket and is lost...

Anybody tackled this yet?

Could try fermcaps first and see if that does anything.. Also are you suggestig a peice of tubing going over the neck of the carboy and going straight vertically? If so that will not be good as particles can fall inside the tube and maybe end up in the carboy..

What size fermenter are you using, and what style?

I've never had blowoff loss problems using the standard buckets, or even 6 gallon carboys.

There is a Home Brewer TV podcast that shows how to make a blow off catcher that puts beer back into the fermenter. I think it just had a tube in half way up a container for blow off and then a tube in the bottom for return to the fermenter and then an airlock in the lid of the container. You might want to check it out. The episode is titled "The Giant Fermentation Lock..."

mike20793 said:

There is a Home Brewer TV podcast that shows how to make a blow off catcher that puts beer back into the fermenter. I think it just had a tube in half way up a container for blow off and then a tube in the bottom for return to the fermenter and then an airlock in the lid of the container. You might want to check it out. The episode is titled "The Giant Fermentation Lock..."

Click to expand...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YyvHGoWLIs
FF to 5min for the blowoff lecture


Yea, A chemistry set type of solution. I was just thinking about how a shop vac system with a bucket works and apply that to the blowoff...

I found a Carboy Cap too....

:rockin:

marubozo said:

What size fermenter are you using, and what style?

I've never had blowoff loss problems using the standard buckets, or even 6 gallon carboys.

Click to expand...

We are using 5gal Carboys and are nearly full with 5gal of beer in them... just not enough head room...

We'll keep an eye out for a 6.5Gal Carboy.

tally350z said:

Could try fermcaps first and see if that does anything.. Also are you suggestig a peice of tubing going over the neck of the carboy and going straight vertically? If so that will not be good as particles can fall inside the tube and maybe end up in the carboy..

Click to expand...

Great. I found the Cap. And Like the blow-off and return idea....
thanks

KettleCorn said:

We are using 5gal Carboys and are nearly full with 5gal of beer in them... just not enough head room...

We'll keep an eye out for a 6.5Gal Carboy.

Click to expand...

Ahh, that will do it.

I loast about 1/4th gallon in my 6.5 gallon carboy last time. (actually holds over 7 gallons when I measured)

why wouldn't the fermenter be blowing up both tubes? Its not like it would know take one up & drain back the other . I guess the liquid portion can drain down against the gas . Mine plug up the tubes especially those small carboy orange caps . Thats when pressure builds and pow...... I'm figuring out 1st day or 2 just leave the lid off/loose till it settles down