Is there a need to switch to an airlock

I put a blow-off tube on my 2nd batch (Fat Tire Clone) after reading that several people always use them just in case. It's been 5 days now, so not much chance of a blow off, but is there any real reason to switch to an airlock. The beer is hanging out in the basement shower, so the blow-off tube and growler aren't in the way.

I'm planning on leaving this beer in primary for 3-4 weeks (depends on when I can get back to it) before bottling, and figured I'd just leave the blow off for the whole time.

I've left all mine with the blowoff tube for the duration of primary...

I like to switch to an airlock, but its mainly to have something to fuss with on my beer. I am told that urge eventually passes.

The only possible problem I can see is that if you leave a growler full of unsanitary blown off wort, then the beer chills for some reason, you'll pull all that back into your beer. Not a big risk of that happening, but I would at least make sure you change out the liquid in the growler with sanitizer. Airlocks are just smaller, so any suck back will be comparably smaller.

BioBeing said:

The only possible problem I can see is that if you leave a growler full of unsanitary blown off wort, then the beer chills for some reason, you'll pull all that back into your beer. Not a big risk of that happening, but I would at least make sure you change out the liquid in the growler with sanitizer. Airlocks are just smaller, so any suck back will be comparably smaller.

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Good point. In this case, I didn't have any blow off, so not a real issue now, but will remember that in the future. Though If I have blow off, I'd probably switch after it settled down to be able to clean the hose sooner than later.

I don't think there's any reason to, no. I leave the blowoff on until I need it for another carboy. My lager had its tube on for 3 weeks before I needed the blowoff for my next brew.

Also, the two brew pubs I visited use blowoff tubes exclusively.

-Joe