Water from blowoff going back up the tube?!

Last Saturday I racked my first batch (one-gallon, all-grain batch of Lagunitas IPA clone) from primary to secondary. Instead of purchasing an airlock, I used a rubber plug and tubing with the end immersed in a glass of water. Same as what I did with the primary.

for the first couple days it bubbled gently, just little blips here and there like I expected. but last night I noticed that the water from the blowoff glass was actually traveling back up the tube! It went up high enough that a few drips of that dusty water landed in the beer.

Am I experiencing a barometric anomaly? Does anyone have an explanation for this?

It was finished and being that the CO2 was no longer coming out it must have had a temperature change which caused the water in the fermenter to contract (cooler) and cause a vacuum. Most likely the beer is contaminated but a taste might tell you.

that makes sense. The weather's gone from warm to cool pretty quickly this week.

So, another question.. I've read in lots of places that guideline about 1 week in primary, 2 in secondary, but it seems that this batch was done much sooner and would have been better off being bottled just a few days after racking. Any opinions?

and btw thanks for the response! I've only been at this for a couple weeks but I've gotten a lot of good info and fun reading from these forums.

Rarely is it better to bottle earlier. It should be finished fermenting in the primary, the secondary is mainly for clearing and conditioning (aging). If you bottle it earlier you'll probably just have to wait longer in the bottles for the taste to mellow out. My normal gravity beers get 10 days in primary and 12-14 in secondary before bottling, and often they still taste a little green after 3 weeks in the bottle. So there really isn't much point in rushing them out of secondary, even if they seem to drop and clear quickly.

As you get a couple of batches made and a bit of a pipeline built up, it becomes a lot easier to be patient. Especially when you notice that your beer is getting better the longer you wait.

so the best thing to do is just leave it in the secondary a while and see what happens? I imagine that even if it were contaminated, I wouldn't be able to taste the contamination for at least a few days.

As long as it was a few drops of this blow off water, I don't think you risk serious contamination. It sounds like it got pulled back after fermentation....once there's some alcohol in that beer, it's harder to contaminate. You would already have gotten weird off flavors if there was enough icky water get in there. Doesn't hurt to pull a sample of beer and taste. If it tastes OK, make sure no more water gets pulled in there and enjoy the fruits of your labor

supermoth said:

so the best thing to do is just leave it in the secondary a while and see what happens? I imagine that even if it were contaminated, I wouldn't be able to taste the contamination for at least a few days.

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It's probably not infected, so don't worry about that right now. If it's been in secondary since last saturday, you have another week and a half to go before you should consider bottling. How long was it in primary? Generally speaking you want to wait at least 3 weeks total from brewing day before you bottle. More if you're patient enough.

Get an airlock, they don't cost much. After the initial fermentation settles down, remove the tubing and put on the airlock, then you don't have to worry about the water going back to the fermenter. In turn, you can leave it in the primary for at least 10-14 days to let the yeast fully do its job. The stores and/or mail order instructions tell you 1 week in the primary because they want you to hurry back and buy more. Try taking hydro readings after 2 weeks in the primary to see if the yeast is done.

ifishsum: it was in the primary for 6 or 7 days.

Fat Guy Brewing: I'll definitely get the airlock now! good advice. And funny what you say about the store guys telling you to rush it.. my LHBS advised me 5 days in primary then straight to bottle for 2 weeks. I was thinking it would be ready for Thanksgiving but now it looks like Christmas!

When i use a blowoff i fill the liquid container that the hose sits in with starsan. I usually use a blowoff for primary and an airlock for secondary. the airlock you can fill with either starsan or vodka to make sure theres on chance of contamination if you experience blowback.