Blow off tube

Made a Summer Ale batch over the weekend with lemon peel and seeds of paradise. This batch called for Nottingham dry ale yeast and holy crap it because a volcano in the carboy and had to switch to a blow off tube for the first time. What are your experiences with Nottingham dry ale yeast?

When I pitch Nottingham into 60 degree wort and keep the fermenter at 62 it does a very sedate fermentation and leaves me with a clean tasting beer.

If I were to pitch it at 80 and ferment it at 72, yes it will go crazy. So will many other ale yeasts. Learn to pitch cool and ferment cool for better tasting beer.

Used once in a stout and it went nuts around 66 degrees. Used again in a cider and it stayed minimal but i've noticed that when i do cider the krausen stays low.

My experience with a batch foaming out is that it is somewhat rare, and unpredictable. My batch this spring was a hefeweizen using WY1068 (I think that number's correct, it's the Weihenstephan strain), foamed up out of the airlock really well. In such a case, I just clean up, put a Star San soaked sponge over the hole and wait until it subsides, then put in a freshly cleaned and sanitized airlock. I've found that by using 7 gallon buckets, these sorts of occurrences are quite rare, blowoff tubes not needed.

I made what's probably a similar beer (trying to do a Sam Adams summer clone, all extract) with notty on 5/9. Checked gravity last night because I will probably bottle Saturday and it was at 1.008. I used about a 1L starter (from washed yeast) and had it in my closet around 60-65 for 3 days. Then I moved it to make room for my next beer and the air temperature has been all over the place. I fermented mine in a 6.5gal bucket and I use a blow off for all beers just in case.