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I have been lurking here for a while and typically find an answer to any question i may have but came up short on this one. I wanted to reciprocate sharing the wealth of knowledge i have gained on this forum over the years.
I recently upgraded from glass carboys to SS BrewTech brew buckets. The headspace on this style fermentor is plenty 80% of the time. I just brewed a big beer with a vigorous fermenting & krausening yeast, 1318. After 12 hours post pitch i could tell i was going to be in trouble with my little airlock. So off to Lowes i went for some homebrew engineering.
I know 1/2" silicone tubing fits the airlock hole nicely, but i hate the unwieldy nature of vinyl hose and did not want to use expensive silicone for the whole tube. Plus i really like to be able to breakdown the blow off hose for cleaning. I was used to using 3/4" standard white PVC pipe and fittings for my glass carboys with vinyl hose but even the 1/2" PVC (7/8" actual OD) was too big for 1/2 ID silicone hose to go in the lid hole.
Then i find CPVC which is closer to copper pipe diameter and thin wall. The 1/2" CPVC was perfect with a 5/8" OD so that a 1/2" silicone hose ID would stretch and fit snugly. So for $5 i have 2 solid blow of tubes, pressed together (not glued) for easy breakdown and cleaning. Now that the mod it is fresh in my head let me save you some time.
Materials
I recently upgraded from glass carboys to SS BrewTech brew buckets. The headspace on this style fermentor is plenty 80% of the time. I just brewed a big beer with a vigorous fermenting & krausening yeast, 1318. After 12 hours post pitch i could tell i was going to be in trouble with my little airlock. So off to Lowes i went for some homebrew engineering.
I know 1/2" silicone tubing fits the airlock hole nicely, but i hate the unwieldy nature of vinyl hose and did not want to use expensive silicone for the whole tube. Plus i really like to be able to breakdown the blow off hose for cleaning. I was used to using 3/4" standard white PVC pipe and fittings for my glass carboys with vinyl hose but even the 1/2" PVC (7/8" actual OD) was too big for 1/2 ID silicone hose to go in the lid hole.
Then i find CPVC which is closer to copper pipe diameter and thin wall. The 1/2" CPVC was perfect with a 5/8" OD so that a 1/2" silicone hose ID would stretch and fit snugly. So for $5 i have 2 solid blow of tubes, pressed together (not glued) for easy breakdown and cleaning. Now that the mod it is fresh in my head let me save you some time.
Materials
- 1/2" CPVC pipe, make sure you get the off white CPVC not the white PVC which is easy to find at big box stores. 5' long was the shortest they had, i got the 10' it was only $1 more and not sure i would get enough for 2 buckets with a 5 footer. Now that i am done, a 5 footer was just enough for 2 blow off tubes had i know the cut lengths
- 1/2" 90 degree standard elbow (female/female)
- 1/2' 90 degree street elbow (male/female)
- Short piece is 8" long
- Long piece is 20-3/4" long to account for the bottom thickness of a ball jar and keep the arm horizontal.
- 1/2" ID silicone hose i had some extra laying around, a stubby piece cut to 1-1/8" to 1-1/4" is just long enough to go over the male end of the street elbow and inside the lid hole without sticking into the lid too much
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