Blow off / blow ups?!

I've now completed 38 batches of beer, and not a single one have I come anywhere close to needing a blow-off tube. Once I had krausen hit the lid of my bucket, but that's it. Nothing happened, it just touched the lid and funked it up.

How is everyone always needing blow off tubes? Why is your stuff blowing up so much?! It blows me away...pun intended

Is it because I use buckets to ferment? I can fit maybe 7.5g in a bucket to the lid, and do between 5.5 and 6.5g. I almost never use my carboy, but have done so for ciders and wines, again no issues.

What's happening, why doesn't my stuff assplode?!

Violent fermentations are a product of a few things. Use a starter/ Temperature of the Wort/ and strain of yeast. Pitching a large quantity of yeast in a wort that is 75-80 degrees will get them moving fast. Also some strains just have a thick sticky krausen like wlp 400 that thing produces a krausen that just wont quit.

You have more head space than most people who need blow off tubes. I use the about same fermenter set up as you. I think my bucket is 7.9g and my batch is 5.5g. I've never had a blow out with that bucket, but I have needed one when using a carboy with a gallon of head space.

The "disadvantage" is sometimes I don't get as much airlock activity as I'd like to see and I think that fermentation stalled, but everything is fine. My last batch was with T-58 and my airlock never made a bubble, but the yeast still worked their magic.

I make 10g batches in a 13g plastic fermetor. I don't typically need a blow-off tube, but I usually didn't with buckets, either...until I did. Having one bucket lid blow off with a 11% porter inside was enough to convince me to use blow-off tubes all the time. Lucky for me I was using one, even though I hadn't "needed" one for over a year because I had a kristallweizen go nuts and spew so much krausen I had to change out the blow-off tube and growler (my blow-off tube goes to a growler with some sanitizer in the bottom) twice.

The new need for a blow-off tube comes with me switching to pure O2. The previous was when I started making large starters and didn't have active temp control.

Psych said:

I've now completed 38 batches of beer, and not a single one have I come anywhere close to needing a blow-off tube. Once I had krausen hit the lid of my bucket, but that's it. Nothing happened, it just touched the lid and funked it up.

How is everyone always needing blow off tubes? Why is your stuff blowing up so much?! It blows me away...pun intended

Is it because I use buckets to ferment? I can fit maybe 7.5g in a bucket to the lid, and do between 5.5 and 6.5g. I almost never use my carboy, but have done so for ciders and wines, again no issues.

What's happening, why doesn't my stuff assplode?!

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Many are using carboys and Better Bottles. There is less headspace available in them. I have a bucket, used 2 times with no blow off. Better Bottles = 25 brews and 4 blow offs.
The other factors are pitching rates, temperatures, gravity, recipe etc.
If you do not use a blow off tube, cross your fingers. You may get one even though you have never had one. Like playing Russian Roulette!

For your next batch pitch onto the previous batch's yeast cake. That should create a more spectacular fermentation.

HAH hilarious, I ask this question and then a week later (yesterday) I start a cider up with good aeration, good temps and some S-04 yeast which I've never used in a cider before. What happens this morning? Airlock is filled with pomegranate cherry apple cider, ahh!

Still was bubbling though but wow it was going mental! This is 5 gallons of 1.060 cider in a 6 gallon carboy, a single pack of rehydrated S-04 and a room at 70f.

So now I know what needing a blow off might look like, glad I caught it early - no mess. I've rigged my blow off into a container of starsan and wow it's like 3-5 bubbles per second, the whole airspace of the carboy is filled with huge bubbles and bits of trub.