I have a bucket that’s eleven inches deep. The 2.92 gallons I wish to ferment in the bucket will come up to eight inches of that eleven-inch depth. 8 divided by 11 is 0.723, leaving a headspace of 27.3% of the volume I want to ferment. Would that be enough? My plan is to ferment two of the 1.87-pound mr. beer tins (3.74 pounds) in the total fermented volume (TFV) of 2.92 gallons. 3.74 divided by 2.92 is 1.28 pounds of malt per fermented gallon. My “somewhat flexible” standard for a beer with enough malt in it is 1.25 pounds per gallon, so 1.28 is fine. Would the nearly thirty percent headspace be enough? If not I have the tall, 6.5-gallon buckets. I just want to use the eleven-inch one for grits and shiggles…
Another question to ask without starting a new topic: Is it possible to use a transfer valve as a blow-off tube? Without going into an explanation that would put Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” into the Short Story category, I need to use a transfer valve with a one-inch ID machine bearing under it, said bearing to be hard against a neoprene fender washer with a one-inch hole in it. A 3/4" NPT thread is a tiny bit too big for a nylon washer, but the machine bearing goes right over the one-inch thread on the transfer valve. I have a rat-tail file somewhere around here but can’t find it right now to file-away a little bit of the nylon so I can use that instead of the zinc-plated machine bearing. I want something that won’t rust during the three-week fermentation period.
Does PVC tubing with a criss-cross weave in it bend and kink too much? I know the stuff without a braid in it does, and quite easily. Must avoid pinching-off the exit for the carbon dioxide gas created during fermentaion…