Emergency blowoff tube for Pliny gone wild

[Tommydee]

Yesterday's brew day was the best yet, great yields, hit gravity on my biggest beer to date....but finally got burned for using second hand 5 gallon fermenters (instead of 6.5). was worried I left too little headspace with my good yield (planned on less than 4.5 gallons, got nearly 5).

I started with my standard orange cap setup with 7/16? STD vinyl siphon tubing for over the skinny outlet. . . (Picture minus the garden hose with the little white cap). The little white cap blew off. So I added some fermcap to the beer, but there's just some happy yeast and a lot of hop debris getting pushed up into that little tube. Then I tried same tube in a bung. 2 hours later, it blew off. Luckily mess is not terrible. Home Depot closed, so can't buy the fat 1" tubing, which is kind of expensive by the way. (But heaped than a ruined batch of Pliny!)

So I got an old piece of garden hose, PBWed the crap out of it and rinsed many times, and starsans. It smells very clean. Fits nicely over the big tube on the orange carboy cap. I'm thinking I'll go with this dual setup til I get home from work tomorrow with beefy 1" stuff....or should I let it run with my original setup, worst case it runs wild with the blown white cap? I think the garden hose should be fine so long as I remove it while fermentation is so vigorous...obviously concern is any biofilm in the garden hose or off taste, but flow seems to be quite vigorous going out. And, I used to drink out of garden hoses.

 

[day_trippr]

Whatever it takes

What's the ID of that plastic carboy neck?
I jamb 1" ID/1-1/4" OD vinyl tubing in my glass carboys for blow-offs.
They never clog...

Cheers!

 

[Tommydee]

daytrippr, almost did what your saying months ago, but decided I didn't want to pay $21 for a blowoff tube at Home Depot,, and I didn't think to ask the LHBS.

Lesson learned, This morning I splurged and bought the fat tubing, but I've soaked for more than an hour with pbw, and the stuff stinks of hydrocarbons. Now soaking in starsans. Meanwhile my funky dual hose contraption, which had no odor, is cruising along nicely, so I'll probably leave it till the AM, while the fat tubing continues to soak in starsans.

Stupid hobby. funny thing with rinsing this tubing is it triggers beer bong/funneling flashbacks!

 

[kh54s10]

Blow off tube at the start of every fermentation! Move your catch jug to the bottom of the freezer. If the temperature drops you could easily start a reverse siphon sucking your sanitation solution into the fermenter.

 

[day_trippr]

$21? Yikes! I paid $1.25/foot at my lhbs.
Barely perceptable pvc odor, definitely doesn't announce itself in the room.

Speaking of which, here's my 1.106 stout that I lit off last night at 66°F wort temperature (controlled), totally rocking the blow-offs, and testing my resolve about emptying that catch bucket...



Cheers!

 

[Tommydee]

Nice. that is powerful stuff. Why the manifold and quick connects in your chamber, if you don't mind me asking. (Still new to this)

 

[day_trippr]

Years ago I acquired a pair of 17cf top-freezer fridges for cheap from Craig's List for my brewery.
I use the one on the right for carbonation/cold-conditioning, frozen hop storage and to keep my yeast ranching efforts chill, and the one on the left as a fermentation chamber.



When I cold-crash a batch I use the CO2 drops to apply slight positive pressure to avoid O2 uptake, using balloons as pneumatic fuses in case something goes amiss.



During the winter I have an additional fermentation chamber so I use the left fridge to carbonate/cold-condition additional kegs.
Hence the four drops.
I've had 10 kegs between the two fridges - when catching up after the holidays effects on brewing and consumption...

Cheers!