Crud in the airlock: how much is too much?

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jakeperks

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My second brew is underway and is really active. On one hand it's a great opportunity to sniff the magic that's being emitted, but on the other hand the crud is entering the airlock pretty quickly.

So my question is how much is too much? The airlock contains starsan which is rapidly becoming a starsan/krausen soup. It hasn't pushed its way out of the top, i.e. it isn't overflowing, so is it safe to leave it and remove/rinse/refill the airlock from time to time, or should I consider rigging up a blowoff tube? At the rate the CO2 is being produced I'm pretty certain there's no danger of any nasties making their way in, so even if the crud is neutralising the starsan's efficacy I suspect there's not much to worry about in that department.
 
Never mind, I think I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to go down the tube route by attaching a tube to the centre tube of the airlock. Funnily enough I found a post by Revvy, with pictures, which shows exactly the same setup as I was thinking.
 
One nice solution is to have a second stopper/airlock setup. After the big "boil" has settled down a bit.. star san around the first stopper.. star san the new setup completely.. and just replace. You still have a ton of CO2 being created.. so, no issues with O2 getting in.

And, even if you go with Revvy's solution, which is better, you still have a spare in case you break something removing the blowoff tube.
 
Thanks to a general lack of preparedness I only have one airlock, which is crazy considering they only cost a few pence!!

Note to self... buy more airlocks.
 
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