Is Krausen bad?

[dubbel dutch]

I'm planning a small batch (3 gallons) of an IPA type beer and I'm wondering if a blow-off tube will take away some of the hop flavors. Is there anything wrong with leaving enough room in the carboy for the krausen to settle down rather than use a blow-off tube?

thanks!

 

[Joker]

The blow off tube is so you don't have a beer explosion. The krausen will settle back into the brew and be just fine.

 

[cubbies]

Also, the chemical components of hops that give beer bitterness and flavor are not readily soluble in wort. They need to be isomerized in the boil. Basically what this means is that any hops that are going to be blown off have already given up all of their bittering and flavor compounds that they are going to give. They may have some slight aromatic values left, but since you are brewing an IPA, I am assuming you are going to dry hop and thus be fine.

Long story short-you are fine.

 

[Liquidicem]

You should be fine leaving space in your primary and not using a blow off. You just don't want to leave much space in a secondary after fermentation is complete because it exposes the beer to oxygen. While fermentation is taking place, CO2 is being generated and displacing any oxygen in the head space.

 

[Kaiser]

There tends to be debate on this subject.

The gunk that forms on top of the Kraeusen is trub material and un-isomerized alpha acids. The latter become less soluble in the beer as the pH drops during fermentation. Ideally you don't want that to fall back into the beer. Because of that I like to fill my carboys enough to get a blow-off. But recently I had less vigerous fermentations and as a result no blow-off and the gunk went back into the beer. I'm not overly worried about it though. I think it would take a good side-by-side experiment to show the difference.

Kai