A big beer, an explosive morning, and an idea

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Ruy Lopez

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I brewed an all-grain barley wine this weekend. Big beer. 23 lbs for 5 gallons. Put it in a 6.5 gallon carboy with an airlock and stuck it in my closet. A smarter man would have put a blow-off tube on from the start, but I didn't. I usually don't mess with them, saving space for the multiple carboys I have in the closet at one time.

Big mistake. I woke up this morning to a slow fountain of kraeusen oozing from the airlock. I scrambled around half asleep to set up a blow-off tube.

Thinking of this all day today I began to wonder: Have any of you cultured yeast using a blow-off tube into a sterile bottle? (tube into bottle, with airlock to let off the pressure but keep it safe from nasty old bacteria.) Not a new idea I know, but I wonder about the practicality/sterility on the homebrew scale.
 
Isn't this basically a "Burton" system like was traditionally used in Britain? It seems like it would work, although I think perhaps it's easier and more controllable to ferment in a bucket and harvest the yeast with a sanitized spoon. Less loss of wort, as well!
 
Baron von BeeGee said:
Isn't this basically a "Burton" system like was traditionally used in Britain?


Exactly! I just kept thinking of those pictures of the old Bass system you see in all the books. The wooden barrels with the blow-off tubes.
 
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