Visiting a small brewery in Asheville made me rethink my whole airlock setup

3 comments

3 Comments

I saw a brewery in Portland use blow-off tubes on every single fermenter. That convinced me to switch for anything over 1.050 OG. It just saves so much cleanup.

parker_park81mo ago

That's a solid rule. Which Portland brewery was it? I'm curious if they use them on smaller batches too, like 5 gallon carboys, or just the big professional tanks. I've had a few scary moments with airlocks clogging on big beers.

hugo_bennett1mo ago

Blow-off tubes are just extra hassle for most home setups. Airlocks work fine if you leave enough headspace and control the temperature. That brewery probably has different needs with giant tanks, but for five gallon batches it's overkill. Cleaning a tube full of sticky krausen is way worse than just rinsing out an airlock.