[nvshooter2276]

Can six gallons of wort be fermented in a 7.8-gallon bucket without the krausen making its way into the airlock? I have a BSG bucket of this size. It's fifteen inches deep and has a ridge at twelve inches, indicating the six-gallon level. The lid protrudes into the bucket a bit, possibly by about an inch. That takes us down to just two inches for the krausen. Am I flirtin' with disaster in wanting to get six gallons of wort into so little headspace? I have a ten-gallon fermenter that proudly exhibits six inches above the six-gallon mark. The lid on the ten-gallon affair is far from airtight. I'd like to ferment all six gallons at once, rather than split the wort into two five-gallon buckets and open-up the possibilities for infection, et cetera.

[denny]

Maybe. Depends somewhat on recipe and yeast. I put 6-6.5 gal in an 8 gal fermenter and get blowoff about half the time. Rig up a blowoff tube and it's no problem.

[Drewch]

I second Denny's assessment.

6 gallons ÷ 7.8 gallons ≈ 20% ullage ... which is very close what I run mostly without issue.

[fredthecat]

yeah, its all sort of "how long is a piece of string?"

yeasts act really differently as well as different temps and wort gravities going on.

maybe check for yeast that people recommend as having lower krausen/foaming?

checking my messy and incomplete notes on yeasts:

notably big krausens - US05,bry97, verdant IPA, voss kveik

english ones/irish ale dont seem to have big krausens, or at least i didnt add that as notes

lagers dont but that may be a factor of temperature/fermentation speed - and that may be the key thing above all

lal abbaye - i seem to have noted that it isnt as much krausen as i expected.

[denny]

Bottom line is use a blowoff and you don't have to worry about it.

[reverseapachemaster]

I wouldn't be terribly concerned unless it's high gravity wort and you're using a yeast known for aggressive krausen formation. Easy way to avoid a problem is to use a three piece airlock. You can easily stick tubing on the stem as a blowoff tube to another container of water for the first few days then swap out the tubing for the airlock pieces and add water.

[nvshooter2276]

checking my messy and incomplete notes on yeasts:

notably big krausens - US05

Safale US05 is my preferred yeast. I have seven or eight foils of it in my freezer. Some of it is several years old; I work too much to ever have the time to chill-out and make some beer. I read herein that freezing the stuff puts the little guys into a sort of suspended animation and they will keep for a long time.

Was just in my Big R store up the street a bit. I found a 12-gallon bucket with lid in there for about forty bucks. Made by Tuff Stuff; p/n is FS12 (or FS-12... something like that). Also available in seven-gallon, seventeen-gallon and 26-gallon sizes. The lid makes a dam-ned good seal, although it isn't airtight. Eight gallons of wort would fill the twelve-gallon to about two-thirds of its height, which I believe would provide plenty of headspace for the most vigorous fermentations. The plastic is thick and is food-grade because farmers store their animal feed in them. I have enough PETs to bottle almost sixteen gallons of beer, so bottling seven gallons out of the Tuff Stuff bucket would be a breeze. One gallon is lost/sacrificed to the yeast trub. I'm not German, so I won't drink it.

I retire in sixty days from today, although I will ask my manager if I can still do one overnight run per week. Maybe the five free days a week will avail me the time to make some beer.

Another thing I found is a 26mm spade bit for drilling the one-inch holes in my buckets for the transfer valves. I have a one-inch one, and I can barely get the thread through the hole. I had to literally screw it in to get it to seat against the bucket. The 26mm bit will be 0.6mm larger than the thread, which is .024" of total wobble between the hole and the valve. My silicone gaskets can easily handle that...

[fredthecat]

checking my messy and incomplete notes on yeasts:

notably big krausens - US05

Safale US05 is my preferred yeast. I have seven or eight foils of it in my freezer. Some of it is several years old; I work too much to ever have the time to chill-out and make some beer. I read herein that freezing the stuff puts the little guys into a sort of suspended animation and they will keep for a long time.

Was just in my Big R store up the street a bit. I found a 12-gallon bucket with lid in there for about forty bucks. Made by Tuff Stuff; p/n is FS12 (or FS-12... something like that). Also available in seven-gallon, seventeen-gallon and 26-gallon sizes. The lid makes a dam-ned good seal, although it isn't airtight. Eight gallons of wort would fill the twelve-gallon to about two-thirds of its height, which I believe would provide plenty of headspace for the most vigorous fermentations. The plastic is thick and is food-grade because farmers store their animal feed in them. I have enough PETs to bottle almost sixteen gallons of beer, so bottling seven gallons out of the Tuff Stuff bucket would be a breeze. One gallon is lost/sacrificed to the yeast trub. I'm not German, so I won't drink it.

I retire in sixty days from today, although I will ask my manager if I can still do one overnight run per week. Maybe the five free days a week will avail me the time to make some beer.

Another thing I found is a 26mm spade bit for drilling the one-inch holes in my buckets for the transfer valves. I have a one-inch one, and I can barely get the thread through the hole. I had to literally screw it in to get it to seat against the bucket. The 26mm bit will be 0.6mm larger than the thread, which is .024" of total wobble between the hole and the valve. My silicone gaskets can easily handle that...

imho and i believe in the case of many others BRY97 has taken over for US05's place. Bry97 has better brewing properties and tastes better imho, its even slightly cheaper at my homebrew store than US05.

id recommend it.

i know you've been explaining your brew project for a while here, maybe you intend to make this a part time business?

im a moderate-heavy drinker tbh i'd say and i make ~18 litres finished beer at a time, about once a month. that probably covers 90% of all my drinking needs each month, with the other 10% just being interest in trying a commercial beer.

i would definitely not worry about going so big on fermenters. i think the 5 to 6.5 gallon size became popular/standard simply as a sort of size and weight that an adult male could grasp and carry realistically.

[Richard]

You could also try Fermcap or similar to keep your krausen from blowing up too much.
https://www.morebeer.com/products/foam-control-fermcap.html

[nvshooter2276]

You could also try FermCapS ...

I have that stuff. I use two drops per gallon of wort being boiled. I have a 15-second cellphone video of about three gallons of Pale Ale wort being boiled, said wort having had several drops of FermCapS added to it. The genuine boil looks like a slow simmer. Very comforting to watch with no worries that it's going to explode out of the kettle and splash all over the kitchen floor.

[nvshooter2276]

i know you've been explaining your brew project for a while here; maybe you intend to make this a part-time business?

Not at all, regarding a business in making beer. I enjoy conversing with people who make beer far more often than I can, and who make beer that's a far superior product than can I. It's been three years since my last batch, and I want to make some more so very badly. I drive down the road on my interstate runs, brewing the beer in my mind. I'm heating the water, dissolving the unhopped LME and BrewMax Booster from mr. beer in it, bringing the water to boil, cut the flame, stirring-in the malt syrup, flame back on, adding the hops, stirring for an hour whilst prosecuting the hop additions. You know the drill.

Now that I can afford to buy the best makings I can find, I'm mentally rehearsing the procedure so I don't forget something come Brew Day. My greatest fear is that I'll somehow get a bug into the wort and I'll end-up with infected beer. I'd still drink it, even if it was infected. I had a batch like that in the middle 1990s; there was a white ring around the inside of the bottle at the top surface of the beer. I drank it, anyway. I don't remember if it tasted bad or not.

[nvshooter2276]

... use a blowoff and you don't have to worry about it.

What is the thread designation for the one-inch transfer valves most of us use? Is it 3/4" NPT or 1" NPT? I'm thinking a hose barb to fit one-inch clear PVC tubing, and having a thread opposite the barb that is the same as the threads on our transfer valves. This way, I can drill a hole in the lid of one of my fermentation buckets, install the hose barb thingy with the nut from the common transfer valve, push the PVC tubing onto the barb and run the blow-off tubing into a one-gallon Hawaiian Punch jug full of water. Then my beer can go krausen krazy all it wants...

3/4" barb: https://www.supplyhouse.com/Spears-1436-007MHT-3-4-PVC-Barbed-Insert-Male-Hose-Adapter-Male-Hose-x-Insert?utm_source=bingad&utm_medium=shopping&msclkid=357bfa6ee80a1282ab129c49ec9983d8

One-inch NPT barb: https://www.supplyhouse.com/Bluefin-GHBM100-1-Hose-Barb-x-1-Male-Brass-Pipe-Adapter

[nvshooter2276]

What is the thread designation for the one-inch transfer valves most of us use? Is it 3/4" NPT or 1" NPT?

It's 3/4" NPT. I went down the street to Big R and found exactly what I wanted-- for 68 cents apiece. I was feeling like a big gas & oil man at that particular moment, so I bought two. Uses 3/4" clear PVC tubing on the barb end. A three-piece airlock filled with krausen is no longer a concern...

[nvshooter2276]

Was just in my Big R store up the street a bit. I found a 12-gallon bucket with lid in there for about forty bucks. Made by Tuff Stuff; p/n is FS12 (or FS-12... something like that). Eight gallons of wort would fill the twelve-gallon to about two-thirds of its height, which I believe would provide plenty of headspace for the most vigorous fermentations.

That bucket has been on my mind ever since I saw it several weeks ago. Went in today and bought one (with the lid, o'course). I filled it with eight gallons of water dyed blue, one gallon at a time, and marking-off the level as the volume increased. I found eight gallons of water to fill the bucket to 12.375 inches above the countertop upon which the bucket was set. Headspace at eight gallons was 5.75 inches below the lid, the bottom of which sets a bit below the absolute lip of the bucket. I believe almost six inches of headspace above the bubbling wort should be plenty to keep the krausen out of the airlock. I have the two 3/4-NPT hose barbs to which I can attach silicone tubing and use as blow-off devices. I just do not have any 3/4" silicone tubing as of this date. Can't use PVC tubing because it kinks-up so terribly.

If I ferment eight gallons, should I use 2 x 11.5-gram packets of Safale US05? I have plenty of them, so I'm not concerned that there might be a new yeast on the block that's getting rave reviews from all the brewmeisters who are light-years ahead of me in their talents. The packets have been in my freezer for several years; I hope to helsinki that they're still viable.

As with my original intent to ferment seven gallons and bottle six from my 13.5-gallon garbage can, I'll ferment eight gallons with this bucket and bottle seven. I have enough 500cc bottles to do it. I'm willing to sacrifice the one gallon below the spigot to keep the dead yeast out of my bottling bucket.

As measured from inside the bucket, eight gallons is twelve inches from the bottom, and the lip of the bucket is eighteen inches from the bottom. Ought to be plenty of headspace for a rockin' healthy fermentation...

[BrewBama]

I think 2 packs of -05 in 8 gal would get you to around 1.058 @ 65°F


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