I just need someone to tell me to relax it'll be fine

So I'm fairly new to brewing and my first 2 batches turned out great. These last two have me worrying more and more about little problems.

The first was a 90 minute clone that started bubbling like crazy and thanks to the forums I rushed and made a Jerry rigged a blow off tube. I cut my plastic tubing to fit it onto/into the airlock...problem is it wouldn't fit exactly and there was a small hole that air could get it. Even worse I had to move the bucket to the garage for a day (in case it blew the top i wanted to keep my marriage) where the temp may have been around 80 degrees. It has since been moved back to the beer closet and is bubbling again, not as ferociously.

The second problem is I racked my American brown ale tonight and decided to dry hop to see how it would turn out. I didn't sanitize the muslin bag before putting the whole leafs in and now I fear I may be in danger of contaminating the batch.

Someone wiser than me please tell me they will be fine and I did not waste 6 weeks and 150 dollars.

Worrying won't help.

RDWHAHB

I wouldn't worry too much. Especially not about the hole in the blow off tube. The CO2 pushing out of your beer is enough to keep the air out.

While the high fermentation temps are not ideal, it's not the end of the world. Just next time try to keep it a consistent temperature.

And on the brown ale dry hopping... again don't worry about it. If your beer is already mostly fermented then the alcohol + the hops should be enough to stave off an infection.

Dude you'll be fine on all accounts, I screwed up (or so I thought) majorly during just about every step of the way on my first brew and you know what.... I made beer, turned out to be really good beer (NB's Bourbon Barrel Porter actually).

Don't worry, let it ferment out and primary it for 4 weeks (month) and you'll be good.

I'm sure it is going to be terrible. Just bottle it and send it to me. I'll take care of the disposal. Sorry for your loss.

Yep. It's fvcked. All you can do is wait and see how bad.

150 bucks!!! How big a batch did you make?

Relax. It'll be fine.

You're screwed! Send me the beer for proper disposal...

I will jump on this grenade, send me you beer. You will be fine.

Don't sweat it. In fact, if you want some reassurance about not sanitizing your muslin bag, there is a thread somewhere in this section of the forum where a bunch of experienced brewers shared all of the "non-sanitary" mistakes they have made and everything turned out fine. There is one story on there about a lighter being dropped in the fermented after transferring the wort and the op having to reach in to get it.

As long as you take the time to go through the motions and be cognitive about cleaning, a minor lapse in preperation like that won't kill your batch. Basically, just don't take a dump in your wort and you'll have something drinkable.

I've done a bunch of stupid stuff to my beer. Every mistake is a learning point (usually) that teaches me something. All of the beer turned out fine. Just read around on here and you'll really feel better about your relatively minor mistake.

<-- noob, so don't take me too seriously.

It seems to me that the overwhelming obsession with sanitation in modern homebrewing is about brewing excellent beer, and doing so repeatably. It's worthwhile to remember that one of the primary reasons for beer in centuries past was as a means of making nasty water safe to drink. And, news flash here folks, they didn't have StarSan or C-Brite in the Middle Ages.

It seems to me that if one were only concerned about brewing decent beer (as opposed to "excellent"), and were willing to tolerate an occasional lost batch every once in a blue moon, you could probably not bother with sanitation at all and still get away with it more often than not.

Not that I'm suggesting this! I think the obsession with sanitation is definitely a good thing, as that's one of the few factors involving fermentation that is entirely within the brewer's control and simple enough for even the most novice brewer. I'm just sayin', when I start to worry about a possible contamination event where it's too late to do anything about it, I find it helpful to picture some filthy smelly unwashed medieval peasant stirring up a brew in a disgusting wooden pot using a stick he found lying on the castle grounds. Those guys made drinkable beer. Probably mine will be too.

Most of the early beer was drinkable.

And many patients did not die of infection during procedures and operations in early medicine. But plenty did. With sanitation, we have fewer infections and fewer deaths.

I'm just saying...

Chill, bro. RDWHAHB. If you don't have any homebrew, RDWHACB...or 12.

Only advice to you is less "Keystone Cops" running around the house with the fermenters. It's taken me about 6 months and a few blown batches to realize that "set and forget" is really the way to go.

Get your wort cool, find a cool dark space, pitch enough healthy yeast to attenuate your beer properly and do everything you can to stay away for at least 3 weeks.

During fermentation, there is almost nothing you can do to help your beer (other than give a stable environment)...but there are literally hundreds of ways you can screw it up.

Cheers!

ayoungrad said:

Most of the early beer was drinkable.

And many patients did not die of infection during procedures and operations in early medicine. But plenty did. With sanitation, we have fewer infections and fewer deaths.

I'm just saying...

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By some estimates, before about 1905, for the vast majority of ailments you were worse off going to see a doctor than just letting it run its course. heh... Most certainly, in the mid 1800s, a woman going to a hospital to have her baby was incurring significantly increased risk. I don't think the situation with medieval beer was nearly that bad.

But, within perspective, you're point is valid. Better sanitation = better results. In medicine, that means fewer dead patients, and healthier living patients. In brewing, I think that just means fewer wasted batches and tastier keeper batches.

Again, the point is not to say, "I don't need to sanitize!", the point is to say, "Well, even though I screwed up on the sanitation this time, my beer is still probably in far better condition than virtually all of the beers that were brewed in centuries past."

The temperature in your garage may have reached 80 degrees? I have trouble getting mine over 40 degrees and yes, that's Fahrenheit.

80 is definitely too warm and will give you some strange flavors. Instead of moving your fermenting beer where it is too warm to avoid blowoff, set the fermenter in a tub, remove the top and cover the opening with aluminum foil or saran wrap. Your beer is pushing all the air and bacteria out with the amount of CO2 it is producing and that fast ferment is driving up the temperature of the beer without you adding to it by putting it in your hot garage.

jsweet said:

Again, the point is not to say, "I don't need to sanitize!", the point is to say, "Well, even though I screwed up on the sanitation this time, my beer is still probably in far better condition than virtually all of the beers that were brewed in centuries past."

Click to expand...

Agreed. I just thought the concept of thinking things were good during that time period made for a little fun.

For me, I am pretty anal about sanitation. But I agree about not worrying. Once it's done, it's done.

I also think that way too many people on here seem to be overly paranoid about infections. It seems like some people think that an infection explains every single off-flavor ever posted on here. But in fact, infections occur uncommonly and are rarely the root cause of off-flavors. Common causes of off flavors are things like green beer, uncontrolled fermentation temperature (yes, 80 is WAY too high - add 3-10 degrees to ambient and there you have your real fermentation temperature), chlorine and chloramine, stressed yeast, diacetyl, etc, etc and etc. And then, oh yeah, occasionally an infection can occur.

But to address the OP:

Even with all those off-flavors, it's still beer. And beer is good.