Still No Blowoff...WTF!?

In 28 batches, I've never had a blowoff. So, I'm not really complaining or nothin, but come on. I had a huge trub of Pacman that had just finished an imperial IPA. While the Burninator's wort cooled, I racked the IPA to secondary, then immediately strained the new wort directly onto it. I thought, if anything would result in a blowoff, it'd be a 1.125 OG barleywine racked directly onto an active cake of pacman. But no. The krausen got pretty big, but never approached the tube.

Meanwhile, I hear about other people having blowoffs regularly. As I said, I'm NOT complaining...I'm just really curious as to why I've never had one.

You know, I siphoned a batch onto a healthy batch of yeast once and the Krausen came to the ceiling of the primary bucket but that was it. I think in general it is really dependent on how much head space you have.

So is the Burminator burning the country side?

You could be right. I had a 1.076 OG trappist that ended up being about 5.5 gallons in my 6gal carboy. I had major fermentation and serious blowoff issues with that one. It was both strong and lacking in headspace though. It may have had a blowoff even if it had been smaller. I still look forward to having a blowoff when I rack my (second attempt at an) Imperial IPA onto the cake from my blonde ale.

I always need a blowoff in the summer so I'm sure higher temp causes it, also yeast type is important too.

zoebisch01 said:

You know, I siphoned a batch onto a healthy batch of yeast once and the Krausen came to the ceiling of the primary bucket but that was it. I think in general it is really dependent on how much head space you have.

So is the Burminator burning the country side?

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Burninator got up to the low 70's when fermentation was rolling, even though the ambient temp in my brewroom is 58f or so. So, yeah, you could say that Trogdor is Burninating those sugars.

Evan- make a hefeweizen and use the hefe yeast. i will all but gaurantee a blow off.

It's all contingent on the amount of headspace in your primary fermenter, how active your fermentation is, and fermetantion temperature. Embrace your luck without using the blowoff tube, it can be a messy cleanup.

I've had blow-off twice. The first time, my airlock flew off and hit the ceiling. I was ready for the next one. It's always been when I used my carboy as a primary.

The only times I've had a serious blowoff (the most recent last wk) was when I've just dumped the wort into the fermenter w/o straining out the pellet hops.

What I've watched happen is the hop sediment roils through the wort and up through the krausen and then sits on top of it taking up a lot of the head space and eventually clogging the airlock (or last week a hastily improvised blow off tube fashioned from a racking cane and 3/8" tubing - the hops plugged it up and it blew within a couple of hours - lost 1/2 gal of beer and had to clean the 'baby poo' off of the ceiling and walls)

Reverend JC said:

Evan- make a hefeweizen and use the hefe yeast. i will all but gaurantee a blow off.

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Hmmm, good advice...I am slated to make a dunkel this coming weekend if all goes well.

Reverend JC said:

Evan- make a hefeweizen and use the hefe yeast. i will all but gaurantee a blow off.

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Oh yeah? I made a hefe that I pitched directly onto an existing hefe cake...no blowoff. Quick, vigorous ferment, but no blowoff.

redpale said:

The only times I've had a serious blowoff (the most recent last wk) was when I've just dumped the wort into the fermenter w/o straining out the pellet hops.

What I've watched happen is the hop sediment roils through the wort and up through the krausen and then sits on top of it taking up a lot of the head space and eventually clogging the airlock (or last week a hastily improvised blow off tube fashioned from a racking cane and 3/8" tubing - the hops plugged it up and it blew within a couple of hours - lost 1/2 gal of beer and had to clean the 'baby poo' off of the ceiling and walls)

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Can't say that I've ever left the boil residue in the wort. But that's pretty common.