How much air gets into plastic fermenting buckets?

[petry121]

I brewed a beer this last weekend and had to use One of my plastic buckets to ferment in; I usually use 6.5 gallon glass carboy.

When I use the glass carboy all of my ales go crazy during fermentation, I mean it gets all the way up the tubing and into my cup of star san. When I put this last brew in my bucket I am not getting the same results. I am using wlp 550 in this beer I am talking about.

My question is this; is more co2 escaping through the bucket than what escapes form the glass carboy?

 

[osagedr]

It's possible. Are you seeing any bubbles at all through your blowoff? Is the lid on the fermenter expanded? Is your plastic bucket larger than your 6.5 gallon carboy? If you pull the blowoff tube out of your bucket do you see lots of krausen?

At any rate, certainly nothing to worry about unless you somehow do not have fermentation. But you don't have to worry about air getting in your primary at any rate.

 

[Denny]

Probably the lid isn't sealing tightly. Not a big deal at all.

 

[Akavango]

I brewed 2 with WLP 550 this week end. I'm also using buckets to ferment. I had a pretty strong blow off from both buckets.
Maybe you left too much head space or the bucket lid isn't closed properly.

If a bucket is properly closed and not damaged, there is no air coming in.

 

[petry121]

There were bubbles soon after pitching. When I noticed that there weren't any bubbles coming out I pulled the lid off and noticed a nice krausen head, so there is fermentation going on. I am using a 6.5 gallon bucket and I have 5 gallons of beer in so I am not sure if that is too much headspace.

I am not going to stress. It's gonna be what it's gonna be.

 

[billl]

Oxygen transmission through plastic is pretty minimal. Think of it this way. If you had a great seal on the bucket and no air lock, you would build up pressure and blow that lid sky high. Gas is not going to move through solid plastic at anywhere near the rate the yeast is producing it. If gas is escaping, it is going around the plastic, not through it.

 

[kh54s10]

IMO. Don't worry about your buckets. You might not be getting as good a seal with the bucket.

Probably hundreds of thousands and more brew in buckets.

I personally will never use glass carboys. They are way to dangerous!

 

[Fid]

I'd say you should just stop worrying about the "bubbling" in general as it doesn't have any direct relation to the status of your fermentation. As someone else pointed out, your glass carboys might be smaller in volume than your bucket is, or you don't have a solid seal on the lid... or you've got a lower fermentation temperature than usual, or you're brewing a smaller beer (abv wise)than you usually do, or your yeast is just getting started slowly due to something like a cooler than average pitching temp... there are simply too many variables to really tell what the difference is (though I highly doubt its air escaping through the plastic itself) but the important thing is that there is probably absolutely nothing wrong with it at all and remember that airlock activity is not a fermentation gauge.

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

Also keep in mind a 5 gallon batch in a 7.9 gallon bucket has a lot more headspace to push up krausen than a 6.5 gallon carboy.