Question about liquid yeast + blowoff

I've not had much luck with liquid as of yet. The two I've used out of vials never got started. So I've made 60 gallons of beer, mostly with dry yeast, and the closest I got to a blowoff was a barleywine where the krausen got just into the neck of the airlock.

My next batches, though, will be with liquid, trying Wyeast this time. Should I worry more about blowoffs when using liquid than I did with dry?

Well, in my opinion if you are using liquid yeat, be it WL or WY, you should definately step it up wiht a starter. A smack-pack or WL tube of yeast can ferment 5-gallons, but the lag time is much higher and it has to work harder. Make a starter and it will go like gang-busters. And if you are pitching a starter, you will likely need a blow-off.

-Todd

I think which liquid yeast you use is a variable. I used dry yeast and a White Labs Irish Ale Yeast (liquid) and didnt come anywhere close to a blowoff. Other variables are temperature and SG. I started controlling temps, had a 1.083 wort, and used a White Labs Belgian Abbey Ale yeast. My airlock blew off twice before I could get to the hardware store to jerry rig a blowoff tube.

For your amusement... I'm sitting next to my fermentation chiller and I hear my primary hissing. I open the front and my primary's lid is all arc'd out and my airlock is looking like it's boiling (not to mention, the water is no longer clear, it's yellowish). I reach in to try to relieve the pressure by carefully removing the airlock..... right when I touch it, it fires off like one of those water pump rockets shooting hops and froth everywhere. Needless to say it took a while to clean it all up.

I have gotten blow-offs from both. I make starters from both as well. With mine, it was the combination of a very healthy starter and a higher OG brew.

In seven years, I've only had two blow-offs (one dry, one liquid) and two heavy-foaming events. And then there was the beer-mister; where a very fine spray was coming out of the top of the airlock, coating everything in the kitchen with wort.

If you aerate well, the yeast population when the actual fermentation starts will be about the same, regardless of what you start with.

Starters are a very good idea.

Beer mister! That's awesome.

I just had my second blow-off yesterday. My first batch of Belgian Dubbel made a huge mess. Now I'm on a porter. Didn't have any yeast to use so I poured a Sierra Nevada into the wort and it took off like gangbusters. It's a very messy hobbie with too many variables.

I really like the smackpacks. The sheer technological glee is the first part, and the second is that it's basically a starter in a bag. No muss, no fuss. It puffs up so you know your yeast is good (or not). Look for them in a store near you.