polamalu43

Recipes 

Hello,

First post here, but I’ve been reading through all the stickies on this forum—great stuff.

Last week, I brewed my first beer using a Brewer’s Best Weizen kit and I’m hoping that all went well. I have a few concerns.

First, on my plastic primary fermenter lid, there is a tiny black ring that holds the airlock in place. After not seeing bubbles for a few days after brewing, I thought all hope was lost. Then, I read the stickies about fermentation, and I was relieved. It turned out that fermentation did, in fact, take place as evidenced by my FG and the krausen ring in the fermenter. The ring was there roughly four days after fermentation, but there was no longer any krausen on the top of the wort.

Here’s my problem: the black ring (gasket?) that holds the airlock got pushed down and landed the wort when I very first sealed it in the fermenter. While the airlock stayed in place it never bubbled because without a gasket, air could escape. Thus, the wort was never fully sealed in airtight environment. Will this be an issue?

In addition, though I sterilized everything (including the fermenter lid), would there be bacteria in the black ring that could have infected my wort once it fell in?

My third and final question on this topic is the following: will I need a new fermenter lid with a functioning airlock because without it A) I cannot see if fermentation is taking place without opening up my fermenter and B) it doesn’t technically seal the beer in airtight environment?

I tasted my beer after one week in the primary just before I bottled it. It seemed to have some off-flavors. I may post more questions on that under a different thread.

Thanks in advance for your responses.

aekdbbop

Recipes 

1. there should be enough outward pressure from the co2 to keep all the bad stuff out.

2. maybe, but your prolly ok

3. you can re attach the ring

rdwhahb

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"Straight from the earth"

bigjohnmilford

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+1
sounds like every thing went fine.

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Think with your dipstick Jimmy.

JasonK

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Same thing happed to me yesterday. I noticed that bubbles were escaping from around the black ring and when I touched the air lock, down it went! I fished it out with a sanitized ladle and then re-cleaned and sanitized the lid, black ring and air lock. Hope it didn't ruin my wort :-(

What are the odds that something stupid like that happens to two brewers the same week?! They should make those things fit tighter. Let me know how yours turns out.

Jason

Yooper

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Well, I don't know the odds. But let me say this- I believe my very first post on HBT (more than 6,000 posts ago!) was "Help- my rubber grommet fell into my wort! I left it in there. The airlock never bubbled. Will my beer be ok?"

I was not the first and am not the last! We have our very own special club now!

I bought an extra $.35 grommet, and it never happened again! For next time, put the airlock on the bucket lid, and then put the lid on the bucket. I still mutter, Rainman like, "Airlock on the lid, lid on the bucket" over and over while I do this.

Oh, and my beer was awesome. And yours will be too!

Welcome to the HBT grommet club!

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