air leak in primary

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raf1919

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so started my fat tire clone.. all went well except 36hrs into it air lock no bubbles, however you can smell co2 gas throughout house so upon closer discovery my lid has crack in it and leaking. so i quickly sprung into action and pour it into my secondary bucket which is where it is now and bubbling nicely.

did this mess up my beer? the leak and than the transfer?
 
Possibility, but doesn't mean it is always true. Some guys do open fermentations, especially in the past (no lid whatsoever). Is it near anything that can possibly contaminate it? Fruit flies, mold or other bacterias?

I wouldn't toss it, minus well wait for racking day.
 
Possibility, but doesn't mean it is always true. Some guys do open fermentations, especially in the past (no lid whatsoever). Is it near anything that can possibly contaminate it? Fruit flies, mold or other bacterias?

I wouldn't toss it, minus well wait for racking day.

no just sat in our 2nd bathroom bathtub. for exactly 35hrs. before i poured into another bucket.
 
how did you pour it? You mean literally pour? I racked to mini kegs a braggot a few weeks ago after 4 months conditioning and their was a skin on the surface. I was nervous and angered but once It carbed up in the mini's and I tasted it is was amazing. No sourness at all. If you do notice an off flavor try aging it a bit longer, and if you do have growth on the surface more gnarley than a clear skin try straining i it off with a sterile spoon or what not. Most infections do not like alcohol... hence why rubbing alcohol is a great antiseptic.
 
yea i pretty much straight up poured it into another santized bucket. tried to do it quickly. its now fermenting like normal. foam at top and ring around bucket . hope its okay. really excited about this batch.
 
Not the best thing to do to your beer, but more than likely you will survive. If that happens again I'd either just put some tape over the crack or wait until the ferment is over or close to it and then rack to a secondary if you want further aging. If you did introduce Oxygen into the beer you'd want to consume it sooner rather than later - may not be hard to do. :)
 
bubbles through an airlock are not necessary for a good fermentation and pouring into another fermenter is not either. i have a beautiful citra blonde ale fermenting without an airlock at all. the horror.
 
This raises a good question for me: I'm planning a double IPA and expect some violent fermentation. In addition, I'm going to add pasteurized honey 2-3 days in. I expect it to create a possible air lock issue, so I expect to use a blow off tube.

Would it just be easier to not put the air lock on at the start and just go with my blow off tube? Seems like an easy choice to me, but I don't know if there's any risk to going that route.
 
An airlock is nothing more than a valve to keep the lid from blowing off and painting your ceiling with your beer..So if it's coming out elsewhere, that's just as good.

The bad stuff are not ninja acrobats, they really can't get into stuff. The co2 coming out will prevent anything getting in.

The airlock is one of the most superfluous things in brewing, that new brewers seem to put the most stock in.


You really don't need an airtight seal on your fermenter. The co2 coming out of there would protect your beer. In fact many folks with arthitis and other issues don't snap the lid down on their buckets anyway, and may folks just put tinfoil, plastic wrap, metal cookie sheets or even plexiglass sheets on top of the bucket instead. It's really not crucial to be tight. The bad stuff are not ninja acrobats, they really can't get into stuff. The co2 coming out will prevent anything getting in.

In fact you don't want a "pressurized" bucket, if you have one, then at some point you will end up with a ceiling full of beer. I've had that happen when the vent (airlock) gets blocked by a freak hop cone, and it wasn't pretty.

You beer is fine.....half my fermentations never bubble...But I've had 100% fermentation, and that is all that matters.
 
I think wild yeast can make there way into your beer if its not sealed. I think your co2 can fizzle out with long enough time with a leak and make it vaunerable to wild yeast.But usually unlikey. Wild yeast are in the air we breath where there is air there is wild yeast. If that pocket of co2 escapes then the ambient air replaces it.Same reason we try not to open our buckets or carboys very much.
 
jonmohno said:
I think wild yeast can make there way into your beer if its not sealed. I think your co2 can fizzle out with long enough time with a leak and make it vaunerable to wild yeast.But usually unlikey. Wild yeast are in the air we breath where there is air there is wild yeast. If that pocket of co2 escapes then the ambient air replaces it.Same reason we try not to open our buckets or carboys very much.

So say I take my blow off tube, put it in the top of my glass carboy and place some sanitized aluminum around it to better "insulate" it. Would that be good enough for the primary fermentation? I just want to take the most careful route that doesn't involve my carboy exploding.
 
So say I take my blow off tube, put it in the top of my glass carboy and place some sanitized aluminum around it to better "insulate" it. Would that be good enough for the primary fermentation? I just want to take the most careful route that doesn't involve my carboy exploding.

Not really visualizing this,so you have no plug for the glass carboy? Well if you have flimsy foil over and overactive ferment with a blow off its just going to probably take off the foil and tube and gush out, uless maybe you tape down the foil/tube tight.
I had a problem with my(wooden) lids (got rid of them),molding so i( after krausen dropped ) sealed the wide mouth jar fermenter with plastic wrap and a rubberband.No problems.It may balloon up a little but you can burp it too.
 
I think wild yeast can make there way into your beer if its not sealed. I think your co2 can fizzle out with long enough time with a leak and make it vaunerable to wild yeast.But usually unlikey. Wild yeast are in the air we breath where there is air there is wild yeast. If that pocket of co2 escapes then the ambient air replaces it.Same reason we try not to open our buckets or carboys very much.

this is not entirely accurate and to the extent that it is it does not apply to most homebrew situations. many people ferment their beer with just a piece of foil over the carboy, plastic wrap over a bucket or nothing at all in terms of a cover. i can imagine a situation where the layer of CO2 would disappear but that would take considerable time unless you there is a fan blowing into the fermenter. a bucket with a leaky lid will not cause the CO2 layer to disappear. a 3-7 day fermentation without a sealed fermenter is perfectly fine, i have one going right now and i'm sure there are many others out there. if the fermentation is taking place in a drafty, dusty atmosphere that is another issue but most people choose to ferment in atmospheric conditions more amenable to fermentation. the original poster over reacted , in my view, to a situation that presented very little, if any, danger to his beer.
 
So say I take my blow off tube, put it in the top of my glass carboy and place some sanitized aluminum around it to better "insulate" it. Would that be good enough for the primary fermentation? I just want to take the most careful route that doesn't involve my carboy exploding.

how big is your carboy? if you have 5 gallons in a 6.5 gallon carboy you might not need a blow off tube at all. if you do need a blow off tube wrapping it in foil won't hurt anything but not wrapping it would give you the same result. i have 5 gallons in a 7.9 gallon fermenter right now with the lid placed loosely on top, the krausen went up and down and never got near the top.
 
pouring your beer after fermentation had started might have introduced some oxygenation - not really a good thing for beer. Next time, don't panic. If you want to move the beer, a quiet siphon is a better idea.
 
eastoak said:
how big is your carboy? if you have 5 gallons in a 6.5 gallon carboy you might not need a blow off tube at all. if you do need a blow off tube wrapping it in foil won't hurt anything but not wrapping it would give you the same result. i have 5 gallons in a 7.9 gallon fermenter right now with the lid placed loosely on top, the krausen went up and down and never got near the top.

I've got a 6 gallon glass carboy used for primary. I've got a regular bung/air lock for the carboy, but also the large, plastic blow off tube in case I need it.

I would have the extra gallon of space in the fermenter, but I suppose I could also set the wort level at 4.5 gallons.
 
I've got a 6 gallon glass carboy used for primary. I've got a regular bung/air lock for the carboy, but also the large, plastic blow off tube in case I need it.

I would have the extra gallon of space in the fermenter, but I suppose I could also set the wort level at 4.5 gallons.

I bet you won't lose much with a gallon of head space. Those orange carboy hoods is what I use, never a regular airlock. When I have a blow off it can handle it better than an airlock.
 
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