Blow off Krausen

[OneInTheHand]

Brewing a basic ale with starter from WLP001, over shot my volume, filled the glass carboy too high, covered with foil, and had a massive blow off inside my fermentation chamber (a repurposed wine cooler).

But as a consequence of the blowoff I’m seeing a lot less sediment settling to the bottom. Which got me thinking...

Anybody ever fill the carboy nearly completely for the purpose of blowing all krausen off? I’ve used blowoff tubes before but it was more of an ‘in case’ instead of on purpose.

 

[RPh_Guy]

There's no advantage to filling a carboy too high. Removing yeast during the fermentation is not beneficial.

 

[Vale71]

Yeast that has floated to the top or dropped to the bottom has already "removed" itself and plays no part in fermentation so there's really no drawback in removing it either from the blowoff or from the dump valve of a conical.
In the case of blowoff the only drawback is that you don't have control over it and might lose some beer with the yeast, unlike a dump valve in a conical where you can give yeast time to compact before dumping it in a controlled fashion.

 

[foolsbrew]

There's no advantage to filling a carboy too high.

More beer?

 

[Qhrumphf]

Blow it off into a sanitary collection jar, which in turn blows off to a proper blowoff.

Kinda a makeshift burton union top crop. I know a guy who harvests like that regularly, by overfilling and collecting the blowoff. Haven't tried it personally.

 

[RPh_Guy]

You lose a substantial amount of beer when blowing off kräusen. Plus it's a mess to clean up.

 

[Qhrumphf]

More beer?

You'll lose it either way. Blowing it out the top you're more likely to increase your losses than if it settles at the bottom.