blow off valve? how to

I have a rubber bung and a glass air lock for my 6.5 gal CB, and I was wondering if everyone has a blow off or is there a way to prevent this. I hear people talking about some sort of blow off tube or valve. Should I consider this if so how do I install that on my carboy?

Also I work a a pizza joint that has 25 on tap and 350 in bottles, for my first batch I used bottles that were "emptied at work". I sanitized with a gallon of water and a cap of bleach, just sinking them and shaking the bottle. I s this a bad Idea, will my beer be affected or does bleach do the trick,

6.5 gallon carboy should be ok unless you're making something known to have wicked foam action...a wit, a hefe...just for example.

otherwise, you put a 1" diameter tube into the carboy which should 'seal' it and force any blow off thru the hose and out into a separate bucket which has sanitizer in it...so you don't backflow nasties thru the blow off tube.

after a few days, put your bung/stopper and airlock on in its place.

Here is what I did... but you need a 3 piece airlock, the cheap ones:

#1. Cut off the very bottom of the stem that enters the carboy bung... so it is a straight tube, not the cross hair thing.

#2. Take out the bubbler cap and take off the top of the airlock

#3. Then take a 1/2" syphon hose and put it over the end of the straight stem that is coming through the airlock and run the hose into your container of sterile water or fluid...

I use this all the time, works great.

Foam Control

Works every time.


TL

I believe, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, all you need to do is run your tube through the hole in the bung, where the airlock would have gone. Run that tube to a jar (I use a growler) of water filled just above where the tip of the tube is. You might want to put some sanitizer in the water. That should do the trick. I just made my first blow off for my last batch. Working fine so far.

As far as the bleach. I did the same thing with my first batch. I didnt have any sanitizer and I was reusing bottles that I had collected. It was fine. Although, I've learned that you can never have too much sanitizer on hand. But the bleach should be ok.

The guy at the LHBS swears by blowoff tubes. His opinion is that the beer is better than 1 that has not been blown off.

I reuse my bottles as i drink them (as long as they arn't twisties anyway).

Biggest thing is make sure the bottom of the bottle is clean. on my second batch i didn't rinse all my bottles as quickly as i should have and found half a dozen or so during sanitization that I had to re-scrub...