Did I contaminate my batch

Last night after two days of waiting for my airlock to start bubbling, I noticed that the grommet that seals the airlock was push partially into the pail. When I removed the airlock to fix it, the grommet fell in. The only way I could get it was to go in with my arm. I did wash my arm really well before doing this, but I really don't know how sensitive this stuff is to contaminates. Did I just ruin this batch?

Next time just leave the grommet in the fermenter and cover the hole with a piece of foil.

Hands and arms are rather filthy things and just about impossible to sterilize; but the odds are, the beer will still be okay.

No you didn't ruin your beer in fact you just performed on of the most commonn ritul of the homebrewer, "dropping the grommet." Many many many a brewer has done that including a certain mod whose first post ever was the same as yours

You beer is much more hardier that that....Take a read of this thread and see just what stupid things have happened, and yet it manages to survive.

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

Relax, all will be well.

Well I feel a little better. Time will tell.

dae06 said:

Last night after two days of waiting for my airlock to start bubbling, I noticed that the grommet that seals the airlock was push partially into the pail. When I removed the airlock to fix it, the grommet fell in. The only way I could get it was to go in with my arm. I did wash my arm really well before doing this, but I really don't know how sensitive this stuff is to contaminates. Did I just ruin this batch?

Click to expand...

Unlikely. You probably already had fermentation going so it's a lot less likely that the beer will get infected at this point. When bottling my second batch of beer, I dropped a real nasty piece of plastic into my beer and instinctively reached in with my arm to get it. Beer turned out fine.

So much stress is put on sanitation, and rightfully so, nobody wants to ruin a batch of beer. But I think that contaminating a batch of beer is a lot harder to do than we often think. Just chant RDWHAHB.