I had to use my blow off tube for the first time. Today I just put back on the airlock. The gromit got stuck onto the blowoff tube. Talk about nerve-racking working fast to fix the gromit onto the bucket lid. I feel like I’ll be fine it was maybe 2 minutes tops. With how many times I had to fight with that gromit I just hop the beer is okey so far smells and looks okey
I don’t see any problem.
I leave a blowoff tube on from start to finish. No need to change air locks.
I saw on line that it’s good to put the airlock back after all the crazy fermentation is done. Next brew I’ll start and end with it.
When I used blowoffs, my practice was the same.
I can’t imagine what the difference would be.
I am guessing that as well being how many times I see people Open there fermenters every few days for Hydrometer testing and take pictures of it. I never had a brew where I had to use a blow off tube. My first time making and pale ale I mostly do stouts they never get crazy
They didn’t go into why so I couldn’t tell you.
[emoji106] An airlock is an airlock, whether a plastic bubbler or a hose stuck in a jar. I see no advantage to changing near the end.
If you’re going to open your fermenter do it while there’s still yeast activity so the yeast can cleanup any O2 you’ve introduced.
Thank you for the advice I’m still learning so way the soak up any information I can Weather it be reading podcast Online forms social media I just want to get really good at Homebrewing
If you got a lot of Krausen into the blow off, then I would replace it with a clean air lock when fermentation settled down. Maybe that’s unnecessary and I’m just being too anal, but I would prefer the clean air lock in this situation.
I have had to replace an airlock because fermentation got going so greatly that it clogged and popped it out. I just replaced it with a blow off tube in those situations, using the bottom of a 3 piece airlock connected to blow off tubing, so the grommet didn’t need to get changed out. I never thought to switch it back to airlock later and never had problems with the resulting beers.
To the OP - to become a better brewer, just keep on brewing. Temperature control measures were one of my first improvements to my process and lead eventually to focusing on lager beer brewing - I never have explosive fermentations with those lower temperature ranges now, even when it goes gangbusters and finishes fermenting within a week.
Cheers and good luck with your brewing.
i’ve left it on for a month here in canada with no issue, but in korea, using tapwater, i would get a layer of slime and cloudy water after 3 weeks or so without changing the water container the blowoff tube was laying in. i can assume it was something in the tap water, maybe airborne? but to avoid this i guess use bottled or distilled water.
I always used sanitizer for the blow off or airlock, occasionally some old cheap vodka.
My guess is that they didn’t go into why because there is no reason. Functionally there is no difference.
Or a clean blowoff.
Absolutely. Though I’ve never heard of two separate blow offs from the same fermentation.
Just something clean.
I use a 7.9 gallon bucket fermenter for a 5 gallon batch. Temperature is controlled. No blow-off necessary, at least for what I brew. I just never felt good about cleaning a blow-off tube - always worried about something left in it that I missed.
I am watch my temps. Sometimes tho my Digital thermometer is off this time I missed it being off only when I dip in in starsan I noticed it was off. That’s anther then I am anal about is being clean and being sanitary every time that thermometer goes into wort to check some thing it gets dipped in starsan I know that’s going over board but I find it’s better to take every sanitization precaution necessary even if you don’t have to so you never forget when you need to
If my blow off gets junk in it, I throw out the piece of hose. I don’t even bother cleaning it. I’ve only ever had to do this twice, probably 6’ hose total.