Brewing High Gravity Beers with limited headspace

[gxm]

For my first year or so of brewing, I aimed for 5g in a 6g better bottle, resulting in ~4.5g in the keg. I eventually realized I should aim for 5.5g in the fermenter to get closer to 5g in the keg, so I don't have to brew quite as much.

The last couple of times I've brewed high gravity beers (1.080-1.100) with belgian yeasts, I've gotten so much blowoff, I lose 1/2-1g of beer from blowoff.
I'm now wondering if I'm better off:

A - Brewing at my target gravity with smaller volume, leaving more headspace, and accepting that I'll not get quite as much beer from these high gravity brews

B - Fermenting at higher gravity and smaller volume and then adding water after fermentation to hit my target alcohol percentage.

My primary concern with B is that I'll get more high gravity by-products, affecting the resulting beer. I'm curious if anyone has experience with this.

Also, I don't plan on switching to 6.5g glass fermenters.

 

[944play]

Fermcap-S or Defoamer 105 will set you freeeee!

 

[WAdamC]

Fermcap-S or Defoamer 105 will set you freeeee!

+1,000,000. 10 characters.

 

[ericsabbat]

I just did a brew that started at 1.113 with zero blow off using fercap s, seriously that stuff is a lifesaver.

 

[Got Trub?]

I use a 7.5 gal bucket for my high gravity beers. It is my primary fermentor for 6g wine kits so it gets double duty.

GT

 

[kmk1012]

When should a person add fermcap ot defoamer? Right into the primary?

 

[ericsabbat]

you can use a few drops when you do your boil to prevent boil overs, and once you transfer over to your primary throw it right on top. I did it before I used my 02 tank to aerate.

 

[gxm]

Not foaming would certainly solve that problem.
Two questions
1 - Anyone know more about this? "It is classified as a "process aid" because of its novel feature of being completely removed from the beer under normal processing conditions." I'm not able to view the videos on the product website - http://www.brewing-solutions.com/products.php?action=details&id=10

2 - This might be related - do users have any issue keeping a head of foam in the finished beer?

Thanks for the the quick feedback.

 

[ChshreCat]

I've never had any issues with head in my beers and I use fermcap in all my boils and some of my ferments. From what I hear, it gradually drops out as you ferment and is left behind with the yeast cake. Basically, it hangs out long enough to get your through the vigorous stage of fermentation.

 

[gxm]

Thanks for all the responses. I read the Fermcap poll. Fermcap ordered