ARGH!! My batch might be hosed!!

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trev

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Ok, I did my first AG yesterday of a Fat Tire clone. Everything went pretty well until after I
bottled the wort into my carboy. When I was installing the airlock I accidentally pushed the
rubber stopper to far in that it fell into the glass carboy. I made several furious attempts to remove
it with a sanitized hanger to no avail.

So, I finally gave up on trying to retrieve the stopper (which was sanitized too) and let it be. I did get the stopper up to the neck of the 6.5 gallon carboy and then even tried to pull through with un-sanitized needle nose pliers (I hope this did not contaminate my batch.) :(

I went ahead and pushed a second stopper into the neck of the carboy along with the airlock but
noticed today that is was shoved in too far and air was probably leaking out so I adjusted and now it is bubbling about every 4 seconds and krausen has started to form on the top.

Is my batch ruined? Should I wait 10 or so days and take a sample to see or should I just dump and start over?

My recipe for 5 gallons was:

Strike Temp: 168 F
OG = 1.050 FG = 1.013

I batch sparged at 170 F for 15 minutes.

45 minute mash at 154 F
90 minute wort boil

1 LB - Belgian Carapils Malt
3 LB - Weyermann, Dk. Munich (10L)
1 LB - Dingemans, Biscuit
9 LB - Briess, 2 Row American Pale
1 LB - Dingeman's, Cara Vienne Malt (20L)
1 OZ - Briess, Chocolate Malt
White Labs WLP051 - California V Ale Yeast

1 OZ - Willamette Hops at 90 minutes
1/2 OZ - Fuggle Hops at 20 minutes
1/2 OZ - Fuggle Hops at 0 minutes

-- Trev
 
Never dump brew unless you are sure it is contaminated, and it tastes bad. Even infected beer is not going to hurt you and it is possible it could taste OK. Very likely your beer will turn out fine so RDWHAHB.
Craig
 
I'd be surprised if your beer was ruined. You dump so much yeast into the beer that it'll outcompete almost anything--unless you sneeze into it or something.
 
What could be lost by letting this one run it's course ? Time? Experience ?
Let-r-go and see what happens-could be some really great stuff;I don't think all is lost just yet. DWRHAHB Shane
 
Yep, I planned on staying with the course, but wanted to see what you guys think as a second
oppinion. BTW: I updated my recipe, I forgot to mention the hops and the mash and boil time.

It definately smells like a good one. :p

Thanks,

-- Trev
 
It is amazingly difficult to actually get a contaminated batch. Just let it ride and see what happens. =)
 
Trev don't worry at all------ I pushed a #6.5 stopper into a batch about a year ago. I let it ferment for 6 days and then siphoned. I expected a rubber taste, but it was just good beer. It f--ked with my mind though so I know how it feels. Good luck and let it do it's thing.
 
Llarian said:
It is amazingly difficult to actually get a contaminated batch. Just let it ride and see what happens. =)

Right. What I'm also worried about is that the airlock was not sealed properly for around 16 hours so it was breathing through the neck of the carboy? I now notice a good bubbling in the airlock (now that it's sealed properly) around every three seconds. I did not use a starter I just pitched into the carboy just prior to siphoning from the chilled wort and moved the siphoning tube around as much as possible to aerate.

Any chance that might cause a problem?

Thanks for all of the responses, you guys are great and I love this forum!

-- Trev
 
CO2 is heavier than air, so the instant fermentation starts you have an outward flow. Before that, the yeast are using the O2 to grow.

As long as nothing with legs got in there ...
 
david_42 said:
...As long as nothing with legs got in there ...

:off:
Reminds me of my first brew dream:

I once dreamt that my fermenting wort grew arms and legs and lifted itself out of the fermenter and took a crap on my living room carpet.

The next morning I decided it was time to rack to the secondary. No poop smell.

I'd say if that happens, you may want to pitch it...:D
 
I did my first AG about a 2 months ago. Remember that First time you TRYED to ride a bike? Same thing here. Practice makes perfect and i still have yet to make a perfect beer. But damn its fun workin on it.
 
tdavisii said:
I did my first AG about a 2 months ago. Remember that First time you TRYED to ride a bike? Same thing here. Practice makes perfect and i still have yet to make a perfect beer. But damn its fun workin on it.

Not a very apt analogy. Learning to ride a bike resulted in not much fun, and a lot of scrapes and bruises. Brewing has resulted in, at the very worst, 2 infected batches out of 33. Otherwise, even the ones that aren't my favorites are drinkable and get me drunk. Much better than falling on your face in the gravel. :D
 
Evan! said:
Much better than falling on your face in the gravel. :D

Apparently you haven't been drunk enough then.

My LHBS sells these ... well, for lack of a better term, carboy condoms. They're these red rubber things that fit over the *outside* of the neck, and the airlock fits in to it. They're similar to carboy caps, only not. I've looked for them online and never found them. So I've never had this so called bung-in-the-wort problem :D
 
Some years ago, I was very cocky about my brewing and the power of yeast. Another brewer friend said, "Dude, yer gonna get a bad batch eventually." So, to prove a stupid point, I went outside and got a dead grasshopper that the cat had been knocking around on the pavement. I dropped it into a batch of nut brown that had just begun to bubble. "You'll drink this beer and you'll like it," I said to my friend.

And he did. Cheers, -p
 
OK, I love all of the responses. When I checked the fermenter this morning it was
moving around like a wild beast and the airlock was bubbling at about 4 per 3 seconds. I just came home after the "Heaven and Hell" concert to find it subsiding at about 3 burps every 5 - 7 seconds with much less krausen.

I hope this one will turn out ok, if not, I KNOW my next one will!

I've learned some great lessons with AG so far, and I know I love it!!

-- Trev
 
Just chiming in that I'm sure the beer will be just fine. We've all been through variations on the contamination scenario. I've had one batch of fifteen that seemed to be contaminated so far, and it's still drinkable, mostly. :drunk:
 
If you ever have an infected (sour not acetic) batch, just keep it for those nights of clubbing when your overly drink buddies are over after the bar and short on booze. If they can taste that the beer is sour.. they ain't drunk enough. (yes, I am evil)
 
Thanks for all of the positive responses. I have one final question.

I had a bit of over spilling when boiling the wort for 90 minutes and I ended up with only
half a 6.5 gallon carboy worth. I pitched the whole vial of WLP051 liquid yeast which contains
a net volume of 35 ml. Will this be ok since I only have about 3 1/4 gallons of fermenting wort?

Cheers!

-- Trev
 
My humble (I guess) opinion is that it will be fine... I tend to underpitch almost everything, and from reading the posts here that's probly worse than what you did....

And, Denny, I don't use dead grasshoppers anymore- I've become a strict adherent to the German Purity Law! (Maybe an unlucky silverfish now and then...)

Cheers, -p
 
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