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Author Topic: My cheap mod for capturing yeast in blow-off.  (Read 1253 times)

Offline Steve L

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  • Rocky Mount, VA
My cheap mod for capturing yeast in blow-off.
« on: December 13, 2014, 05:41:51 pm »
Hi all. This is my take on the blow off yeast recovery system that I've seen a lot of online. I don't have a continuous loop for mine. My bet is that this isn't anything new but I found some cheap alternatives. For mine I used 1/4 ID tubing and a red carboy cap. If you soak the cap in boiling water for 30 seconds, the tubing will slide in the center hole quite nicely. This makes the length of the hose adjustable for whichever bottle you choose to use. I shortened the angled outlet on the cap and used a piece of 3/8 ID hose to attach my airlock. The Bottle is actually a 1 quart milk bottle from the grocery store. We have a local dairy that still uses glass, the red caps fit perfectly. The red cap also fits a 1 liter Erlenmeyer flask. I just fill the bottle 1/2 way with boiled de-aerated water.
I've tried it and it works flawlessly. This setup is perfect for me as a 1/2 batch brewer. I use better bottles and with 2.5 gallons of wort I almost always need a blow off. I recovered about 150mls of WLP001 on my first run. Of course if you end up not needing the blow-off then a simple rinse of the carboy post fementation gets it done too. Thanks for checking it out; tweaks and suggestions are most welcome.

Corripe Cervisiam

Offline pinnah

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Re: My cheap mod for capturing yeast in blow-off.
« Reply #1 on: December 14, 2014, 06:11:54 am »
Very cool.  I have always admired the pure and clean beauty of blowoff yeast.
 Is that your experience?... that it is trubless and cleaner than the cake at the bottom of your primary fermentor?

What is the advantage of capturing blowoff yeast?

Offline Steve L

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  • Rocky Mount, VA
Re: My cheap mod for capturing yeast in blow-off.
« Reply #2 on: December 14, 2014, 08:16:41 am »
Very cool.  I have always admired the pure and clean beauty of blowoff yeast.
 Is that your experience?... that it is trubless and cleaner than the cake at the bottom of your primary fermentor?

What is the advantage of capturing blowoff yeast?
Best I can tell, the yeast from the blowoff is a bit like top cropping. Having said that, when top cropping you skim off the "dirty yeast" and protein material early in fermentation and discard it. I don't do this with my setup, although I suppose I could switch out the blowoff bottles after a the first few hours of fermentation. The yeast is cleaner in my experience but you CAN get good results by simply rinsing the yeast cake from the fermenter. I do like the simplicity of just pulling my blowoff bottle off of the fermenter and throwing it in the fridge. My primary goal however is not for an easier yeast recovery but to recover all of that good yeast I was losing to the blowoff. Sometimes I ended up with less than half of the yeast cake in the fermenter. When I used the blowoff, I usually had enough slurry to direct pitch without need for a starter.

I can't say for certain what the protein material does to future fermentations. I haven't had any trouble to date but I haven't gone more than 3 generations with any successive batch. Others may be able to chime in with a more informed opinion. The one thing I do to try to minimize any unwanted portion of the yeast is to swirl up my sample prior to pitching into a new batch pitch all but the last few ml's in my best effort to leave the dead yeast in the bottle.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2014, 08:20:50 am by swlusk »
Corripe Cervisiam