I use star san in my airlocks. Everytime I drop the temp to cold crash the liquid in the airlock sucks into the fermenter. What can I do to keep this from happening? I havent had any noticable problems from it but would rather it not happen.
Airlocks and Cold Crashing
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Stankonia
Well-Known Member
I had that problem too, and just stopped bothering with cold crashing for now, especially since I bottle only, so I'm going to have sediment in my beer regardless.
I've read that some people will put a balloon (sanitized in starsan of course) over their carboy which then slowly fills it with CO2, then when it starts cooling off it basically just deflates the balloon, then you can take it off and put on an airlock. This would probably only work with carboys, not plastic buckets.
Another thing I read about people doing is using a blow-off setup with a hose that is long enough that while it will still suck up the starsan in the blow off container, but not enough that it makes it all the way through the hose.
I've read that some people will put a balloon (sanitized in starsan of course) over their carboy which then slowly fills it with CO2, then when it starts cooling off it basically just deflates the balloon, then you can take it off and put on an airlock. This would probably only work with carboys, not plastic buckets.
Another thing I read about people doing is using a blow-off setup with a hose that is long enough that while it will still suck up the starsan in the blow off container, but not enough that it makes it all the way through the hose.
This last batch I did leave the blow off tubes on. Dropped the temp on sat night and sunday morning went to check on it and found 1-1 1/2" of my blow off bucket fluid (which started off as star san 2 weeks ago) floating on top of 5 gal of pale ale. yikes! It was a 10 gal batch and only sucked into one of the carboys and stayed clearly seperated but still scared of it. I went ahead and kegged both. I kept the siphon way under the line and stopped about an 1" before the floating line but kind of scared to drink that one. What do you guys think
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Assuming that you use a 3-piece airlock:
Back to basics: How to fill a 3-piece airlock to prevent liquid suck-back.
MC
Back to basics: How to fill a 3-piece airlock to prevent liquid suck-back.
MC
flatulentfox
Well-Known Member
When I cold crash I remove the airlock and put a ziplock bag or aluminum foil or etc... over the neck with a rubber band. everything gets a good soaking with star san of course. havent had a problem yet.
tlael
Well-Known Member
use an S-type?
This. Sanitized aluminium foil. No suck back worries.
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