blow of tube or airlock

So, I am going to brew my first all grain. Using clarity ferm so that I can drink it cuz I have the Celiacs. Never experienced an all grain fermentation. Is a blow off tube required or air lock still good enough? Any help would be appreciated.

When in doubt: blow off tube.

Really? Even with a 6 gallon carboy and airlock? There might be an accident? Brewing a English brown with only say 1.053 OG

If you are able to control fermentation temperatures and keep the temperature in the desired range during fermentation, then an airlock should work just fine. Warmer fermentation's create some large krausens and crazy blow offs.

What yeast strain?

The question of blowoff tube or airlock depends primarily on size of fermenter in relation to size of batch, and to some degree, style being brewed/yeast, etc.. I routinely use a 6.5 gal fermenter for a 5 gal batch of typical ale and have not yet needed a blowoff tube --- never had an airlock with kraussen in it. With my hefes on the other hand (same fermenter and batch size, respectively), I use a blowoff tube. Anything with wheat malt tends to ferment more vigorously for the same size batch, plus the kraussen takes longer to drop. I recently came up short a 6.5 gal fermenter due to a leak, so I had to rack the wort to what I had on hand which was a 5 gal BMB for a 5 gal. batch of Belgian Wit!! I had no choice. So, in went the blowoff tube, which, once the ferm got going, it blew a constant stream of bubbles and kraussen into the jar of sanitizer for 2 straight days completely filling the tube with kraussen of course, which I had to pull, clean out, re-sanitize and replace twice.

If you're using a 6 gal vessel for a 5 gal batch, like someone else said, if in doubt, go with the blowoff tube.

I'm using the Danstar dry yeast

Way too many variables to just tell you yes or no on a blow-off tube. Yeast, vitality of the yeast, temperature, recipe, headspace. I had a glass carboy explode when I started cause the airlock clogged (Yes it was warm, an IPA, and I was using San Diego Super. A recipe for crazy fermentation) had a bucket about explode on a german rye looked crazy deformed caught it in time and that was fermenting in a fridge. Like post #2 said. When in doubt tube it out. I always start my fermentation with one cause it wont hurt anything. as the krausen starts to fall I put on an airlock. easy peasy.

Steveg229 said:

If you are able to control fermentation temperatures and keep the temperature in the desired range during fermentation, then an airlock should work just fine. Warmer fermentation's create some large krausens and crazy blow offs.

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no no and no, its not that simple. Even controlling fermentations sometimes you can get a blowoff situation.

high gravity beers or wheat beers come to mind.

TLDR: maybe you need one. Its not hard to setup, so why not do it anyway?

Guess I have been lucky then. I have never used a blowoff and have never needed one. High ABV's, wheats, etc. I contribute it partially to fermentation temperature control, but hey, I could be wrong. Probably blow the lid off of my next brew, lol.

Steveg229 said:

Guess I have been lucky then. I have never used a blowoff and have never needed one. High ABV's, wheats, etc. I contribute it partially to fermentation temperature control, but hey, I could be wrong. Probably blow the lid off of my next brew, lol.

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controlled fermentation temps but used a very top heavy fermenting, wehestephan yeast.

Quite the blow off there. I use a 6.5 gallon carboy for 5 - 5.25 gallon brews in a converted chest freezer fermentation chamber. It's been working for me thus far, so...if it ain't broke, dont fix it, right?

I have to start using a blow-off tube. Thanks fermentation goes well but when I cold crash the starsan solution gets somewhat sucked into the fermentator...