ruined batch?

May have ruined a batch...I left a bourbon barrel porter in perfect condition at my parents house to ferment on 1/10/13 as I didn't have room in the car to transport it back home until 1/14/13...well it had a lot of blow off with no tube (my fault), I explained to my dad and brother over the phone how they could improvise, well they didn't follow directions very well when I picked up the batch yesterday the airlock was totally crusted up, it had whisky in it but lots of sediment from the blow off. I immediately cleaned and sterilized the airlock and mouth of the carboy...I'm so bummed and pissed, any suggestions on fixing it or am I **** out of luck?

was the airlock still in and gunked up, or did it blow out? was there an airlock in it the whole time, but you tried to get them to shift it over to blowoff tube?

the airlock was removed one time only, for the overflow, then my brother sterilized it and the mouth of the carboy with whisky then put it back in. the airlock had whisky in it too (I like to use whisky rather than water) as I said before it was crusty when i pulled it off the carboy

It sounds like your beer will be fine. Unless someone introduced some type of infection to your beer, I don't see an issue. Some people don't use an airlock at all. The CO2 produced by the fermentation sits as a blanket over the beer because it's heavier than O2 (as I understand it). Some breweries ferment in big open containers. I've had crayons dropped into the primary, an airlock blow sky high, and all other types of surprises. Not one ruined batch, though.

No way to know. Hope for the best. There are billions of yeast in there to crowd out the other stuff, so you've got a fighting chance.

I appreciate the help guys, lets hope for the best!

Cheers!

Its been almost 6 weeks in primary now, decided to rack it and hope the best! Tastes surprisingly good! next I'm adding



Heavens Hill soaked heavens hill barrel chips from Kentucky. we will see what happens in the next couple weeks . Cheers everyone!!!