Fermentation beer loss

[clemson51]

I'm about 24 hrs into fermentation of a high gravity beer and it looks like I have already lost about a half gallon thru the blow off tube due to krausen. I assume this is just part of the brewing process but after paying a hefty price for a high gravity kit; i want to get all the beer out of it as possible. I guess this may be why they suggest to fill the fermenter up to the 5 1/4 mark.

 

[cluckk]

That's why. You can prevent this with a larger fermenter in the future, but why not just brew more?

 

[ZombieBrew83]

I guess this may be why they suggest to fill the fermenter up to the 5 1/4 mark.

Bingo! I usually fill my fermenter up to 5.5 gallons to leave room for trub when I rack to end up with ~5 gallons of beer. Don't sweat the loss through the blow off. A lot of that is yeast material and not necessarily beer.

 

[Cyclman]

If you can control ferm temps and start at the low end of the yeast's range, that helps a bit, but big beers need head space in the fermenter.