TANSTAAFB
Well-Known Member
I brewed chemnitz's Vespers Abbey Dubbel on Friday and came home yesterday from hiking to find a clogged blowoff tube and thankfully a blown seal on the bucket lid rather than a full on krausen explosion. I cleaned up the mess and let it go. But it keeps blowing krausen through the blowoff at a steady pace. I have read that a massive blowoff will carry proteins and such that are vital to head retention and body but mild to moderate blowoff actually carries away the nasty bitter layer that develops first (braun hefe) as well as trub and hops residue. I began to wonder how much volume I had lost and when I cleaned up the mess I was tempted to top crop some yeast but decided I just needed to get the lid back on and leave well enough alone.
My allergies kept me up most of the night with sinus pressure and runny nose so I kept checking my latest brew when I got up to blow the nose or get a drink. Still steady blowoff. As I sat there watching the CO2 bubbles and foam spit out of the tube I saw a mason jar with a plastic lid sitting on the shelf next to my fermentation fridge. I remembered that I had a pack of misc. grommets leftover from installing the temperature probe from my Johnson controller through the side wall of the fridge. I had an extra airlock that was just laying in a box doing nothing. So at 6 a.m. I pulled out the drill, found the grommets, went out onto the porch so I would not wake my lovely sleeping wife (she would KNOW I had lost my **** if she saw this ), and I made this simple but effective Burton Union type thing that will allow me to simultaneously top crop yeast, empirically measure the amount of material I was losing, and keep it all sanitary at the same time :rockin:
This took me less time to build than to dig out the stuff to build it with!!!
My allergies kept me up most of the night with sinus pressure and runny nose so I kept checking my latest brew when I got up to blow the nose or get a drink. Still steady blowoff. As I sat there watching the CO2 bubbles and foam spit out of the tube I saw a mason jar with a plastic lid sitting on the shelf next to my fermentation fridge. I remembered that I had a pack of misc. grommets leftover from installing the temperature probe from my Johnson controller through the side wall of the fridge. I had an extra airlock that was just laying in a box doing nothing. So at 6 a.m. I pulled out the drill, found the grommets, went out onto the porch so I would not wake my lovely sleeping wife (she would KNOW I had lost my **** if she saw this ), and I made this simple but effective Burton Union type thing that will allow me to simultaneously top crop yeast, empirically measure the amount of material I was losing, and keep it all sanitary at the same time :rockin:
This took me less time to build than to dig out the stuff to build it with!!!