Another mistake, airlock on fermenter

Hey sorry for the n00b question, but i figured Beginner's Forum was the place to ask it.

When i placed my airlock, i forgot to put water (sanitized) into the little plastic chamber. now its half full of wort/beer and bubbling away. so my question is: is it too late? is my beer ruined/contaminated?

you'd think i would have made my mistakes on the FIRST batch, but thus far, my second batch has been the problem child.

thank you in advance

your beer is very likely NOT ruined.

take the airlock out, clean it, sanitize it, put it back in and add some water this time.
good luck.

Not a problem as Lou says.

Make sure you don't make the mistake of shoving a wet bung too hard into the fermentor as it will slip right in. This problem won't ruin your beer either..just a pain.

Cheers.

you're lucky the damn thing didnt get blown right off the top of your fermenter!! HAHAH!!

Don't worry about it. If it was fermenting hard enough for the krausen to fill the airlock, nothing got in. Like they said earlier, just wash the airlock put some sanitizer solution in it and put it back. Next time you may want to use a blowoff tube instead.

done. thanks folks for the friendly and helpful responses.

what advantage does a blowoff tube have?

if you have a very active fermentation where the krausen fills the airlock, it can actually act like a stopcock and pressure can build up in the fermenter. the danger then is that it can explode. literally. it can blow the airlock off or even the whole lid. the blow off tube allows the krausen to be redirected into a container with sanitizer solution.

Yeah, your lid can go "poof" and you wind up getting your walls spackled for free. So, the lesson there is, do it in a room you were planning to repaint anyway. Or in a closet- which no one will ever, ever see.

I like to use whiskey in my airlocks!

Exo said:

I like to use whiskey in my airlocks!

Click to expand...

+1 Only the cheapest tequila will do for my airlocks!

Vodka here!

Except sometimes I use starsan or water...

Not only is your beer going to turn out ok, but remember. You can even open ferment your beer if you wanted to...

Open Fermentation

Holy Necromancy!