Effect of discarding blown off wort

I'm just starting to get into homebrewing, and in my previous batch, which was also my first except for a Mr. Beer, the amount of wort that got pushed out of the blow off tube seemed pretty large. Around 20% of liquid got pushed out. I've read that the blow off carries some of the less pleasant flavors out of the beer, but the amount that I lost to this process last time seemed excessive. So I'm considering using a larger fermenter next time around, and just letting everything (or most o it) fall back into the beer. But I'm wondering, what sort of difference would this make to the final quality of the beer?

Were you fermenting a 5 gallon batch in a 5 gallon fermenter? That's a lot to lose to blow-off.

20% is 1 gallon from a 5 gallon batch. That's too much beer to lose! What size carboy/bucket are you using? I used a 5 gallon glass carboy for my first couple of batches, but switched to 6.5 gallon ale pails when I realized how much I was losing!

Bingo, 5 gal batch in a 5 gal carboy. Not a good idea? I'm thinking about a switch to one of the bigger plastic buckets for the primary fermentation.

NicholasH said:

Bingo, 5 gal batch in a 5 gal carboy. Not a good idea? I'm thinking about a switch to one of the bigger plastic buckets for the primary fermentation.

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You need a fermenter with some headspace for the krausen! Losing some beer to blowoff should be a rare occurance, not part of each batch.

You want a 6.5 gallon container for a 5 gallon batch.

Got it, bucket it is. Thanks. Gonna start a batch of dark wheat ale tomorrow afternoon methinks.

Buckets are cheap. Save the carboy for clearing/aging.