[ccfoo242]

I told my co-workers I couldn't come in today because I had explosive diarrhea:


 

I've read horror stories of fermentation pressures shattering glass carboys when airlocks get clogged, so I'm glad this happened in the plastic bottle. There was at least a half bottle of beer on the bottom of the freezer:



Using my lunch hour to get a blowoff tube from the LHBC...lesson learned! 

[PSUhomebrewer]

It only takes one event like this to learn the value of a blowoff tube. I had an explosion with my Russian imperial stout that I was fermenting in a bucket, blow the lid off the bucket and the fridge door open. After that any higher gravity beer I ferment in either better bottles or buckets gets a tube.

[morticaixavier]

Before putting your complete trust in the better bottle check out this thread

Yesterday when i returned from work, i went straight to check on my 2 day old beer.  I had 25 gals of fresh homebrew in five, 5 gallon plastic water jugs when i left for work. Well to my suprise i only had 20gals when i got home. My 3068 HEFE had exploded!  I dont mean the bung blew off, no the whole jug had blown apart into 3 pieces! Ahhh.... what a let down, i would have been kegging that Hefe and drinking it in 3 more days as i keg my Hefes on day 5 allmost allways. Well no Hefe for you, although i was very tempted to drink the Banana smelling bathtub water, but abstained. Anyway to my point, Boun Vino brand 3 peice airlocks be aware that you should cut the plastic filter tip off of the bottom of these airlocks. The filter fills with proteins and hop debris and stops the pressure from escaping. I have about 20 of these airlocks and 18 of them where cut before use but the one to blame was brand new and i forgot to cut the filter tip hence my accident. I believe the company makes them this way because they

[tygo]

Better bottles can break.  I think there are plenty of testimonials to that although I haven't had one go yet.  But the plastic bottles that exploded in that thread were plastic water jugs.  I guess it's possible a better bottle could explode rather than blowing the stopper out, but if it did you wouldn't have shards of glass everywhere.

[richardt]

Plastic fermentation buckets are bigger (6.5 or 7.9 gallons), don't take any more space in a fridge, and are really easy to clean and store.

Consider a few drops of FermCap-S (anti-foam agent) in the boil kettle and/or yeast starter. 
Boiling sanitizes the FermCap-S. 
It is fantastic in terms of preventing boil-overs or blow-off losses.  It also allows you to ferment more in the bucket (with less headspace).

It also keeps your clean up messes to a minimum and keeps the spouse more supportive of your hobby.