Oops! I forgot to sanitize the lid!

Howdy y'all. I brewed my second batch of beer two weekends ago. A porter. I thought I did everything just right until I realized I didn't sanitize my fermenter bucket lid. So...here's the question... Do I run the risk of contamination? The lid never touches the wort so it shouldn't matter, right? Am I completely wrong to think this? Let me know your thoughts. Thanks.

I have done the exact same thing and my brew turned out fine. As long as the bottom of your lid isn't covered in filth that could fall into your brew during fermentation, you're golden!

In theory, wouldn't the CO2 kill any bacteria that may be on the lid?

We've all done stuff like that on occassion...

Don't sweat it.

One thing a lot of us do is keep a spray bottle of sanitizer handy, usually our iodophor and starsan mixed with distilled water. Then we spray stuff like that.

You have a typical new brewer fear that your beer is somehow weak, like a new born baby..and will be ruined or die of you look at it wrong...I want to put it into perspective for you, and save you a lot of new bewer nerves...

Beer has been made for over 5,000 years in some horrific conditions, and still it managed to survive and be popular....It was even made before Louis Pasteur understood germ theory....

If beer turned out bad back then more than it turned out good..then beer would have gone the way of the dodo bird, New Coke, or Pepsi Clear...

It is very very very hard to ruin your beer....it surprises us and manages to survive despite what we do to it...

I want you to read these threads and see..

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/wh...where-your-beer-still-turned-out-great-96780/

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/has-anyone-ever-messed-up-batch-96644/

And this thread to show you how often even a beer we thnk is ruined, ends up being the best beer you ever made, if you have patience....
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/ne...virtue-time-heals-all-things-even-beer-73254/

There is a saying we have in the homebrewing community...RDWHAHB...make that your mantra and you will be a successful homebrewer...


Oh this thread is really good too...if you adopt the mindset in here you will do well...https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/youre-no-longer-n00b-when-24540/

My krausen hits the top of the bucket most of the time but I still wouldn't sweat the unsanitized lid..

What about the concept of CO2 killing bacteria? Am I wrong to make this assumption? Can bacteria live without oxygen?

I'm pretty sure it can live w/o Oxygen. You could always take the lid off and sanatize it real fast and put it back on, but you probably are ok.

generally, you want the environment to be sanitized enough so that your yeast can win any fight for dominance against any outside bacteria. Chances are if the lid wasn't sanitized, if anything touches the lid the yeast will have such numbers that they will muscle out any foreign bacteria.

You'll never kill everything such that there is no foreign bacteria present, you just want to rig the fight in favor of your yeast.

Once I thought the capper would make a good wedge to tip my fermenter so I could get every last drop of goodness into my bottling bucket. It slipped and fell directly into my nearly full bottling bucket. I never thought of sanitizing my capper. I went ahead and filled the bottles until I could get my capper with out reaching my hand into the beer. The beer was all good. RDWHAHB. It's not too late to sanitize it now. If something does go wrong at least you have a good idea why.