new kit, new dilemma

So my kit arrived!!

The last few weeks have been all about me ordering a kit and tracking down a few other things to make my brew hobby go smoothly.

One of the things I purchased was a chest freezer from craigslist, come to find out that the 6 gal carboy with airlock is just a couple inches TOO big for my freezer!!

Couple options here... my wonderful mother is looking to downsize her chest freezer and is willing to swap out my smaller 3 cu ft for her 7 cu ft freezer. Awesome isnt it? thanks mom

But I was also wondering if i could just skip the airlock and use a blowoff tube into a small pail of water. Would this work for an entire primary fermentation???

I think that would work fine - just make sure you sanitize the hose and that nothing can get in where the tube meets the bung.

Is this for lagering?

B

Actually just for Ale's at this point. My apartment gets ridiculously hot in the summer. 90+ degrees so it'll just be so i can ferment at a comfy 65 degrees

I do this. My Better Bottle only fits in the my fermentation space with a blow-off tube, not with an airlock. So I simply keep the blow-off tube set-up (with the end of the tube in a beer bottle of sanitizer) during the entire primary.

If an airlock is to high, you may want to design/use something that uses 90 degree angles and keeps a low profile because blow off tubes can arc higher than a standard airlock especially if they are of a thick and wide diameter. A kink in your blow off tube is not good.

Check out this thread:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/need-help-better-bottle-explosion-77541/

And I think William's Brewing has these newfangled airlock things that are very low-profile. I think it's basically a one-way vent that doesn't use liquid. Maybe that'd fit?

I think you could even use sanitized Aluminum foil, just like is used for yeast starters in Erlanger flasks. Assuming you can't fit anything else.

You could also build a small collar for that chest freezer to gain a couple of inches.

JonM said:

And I think William's Brewing has these newfangled airlock things that are very low-profile. I think it's basically a one-way vent that doesn't use liquid. Maybe that'd fit?

Click to expand...

Somebody posted a link to that 90deg elbow thing. it fits a 3/4" spigot. My newer Italian ones are 1". good idea,though. Maybe some potable RV hose adapter in the proper diameter would do it? The kind that would be used to push a small hose onto?

I shoulda posted a link. Here's the thing I was thinking of:

http://www.williamsbrewing.com/10-VENTED-SILICONE-STOPPER-P2667C94.aspx