Made my very first batch of beer this past Sunday (2 days ago). Brewed an Irish Red Ale extract kit from Midwest supplies. Everything seemed to have gone well and my buckets are currently fermenting in my basement. Today (Tuesday afternoon), I checked on the airlocks and saw that the star san had been bubbling out of the 3 piece air locks and were pouring out onto the lids. After some google searches I quickly realized that I had made a mistake by not filling the airlock with a star san SOLUTION…I have 2 buckets fermenting, so I removed both 3 piece airlocks, dumped the star san and replaced with the appropriate star san water solution. I read that some of the pure star san could have been sucked into the bucket through the air lock. How likely is that to happen after 2 days? If so, how screwed is my ferementing wort? Do I even bother bottling in 3 weeks?
CO2 from the fermentation was pushing out the air lock. You only get suck back when cooling (like crash cooling in a fridge or a significant temperature swing in the room) so you’re beer is fine! RDWHAHB [emoji482]
Get ready to watch the bubble machine. Star san will make a lot of them. I just use cheap vodka, no bubbles and no worries if suck back during cooling period.
I don’t use those airlocks anymore. If I get blowoff I want to give it somewhere to go. So I use an elbow on the fermenter lid and a hose with the tag end in a mason jar of water. Plain old water. I cold crash in the keg after transfer so there’s no risk of suck back.
I used to use a small ID hose but the blowoff clogged it once so I moved to much larger ID hose. No worries now. Easier to clean, too.
^^^^This
I exclusively use a blowoff tube on my fermenters after many times clogging or blowing out krausen into a three piece airlock There is about a 3’ differential between the top of the conical and the growler bottle that the other end of the blowoff tube runs into. Although using water works just fine, I have a half gallon solution of Saniclean (the non-foaming version of Star San) that I mix up before every brew to sanitize my tricolver clamps and gaskets. I just pour about an inch or two of it into the growler, put the end of the blowoff tube into it, and I am good to go. If there is any blowoff, it all goes into the growler and not all over the floor (or lid of the bucket if you are fermenting in that).
One more thing. You can take the floating piece out of the inside of the airlock and attach a blowoff hose directly to the central tube of the airlock. I used to do this as well when I fermented in buckets or carboys. That way you have a tight fit between the airlock body and the gromet in the bucket lid.