Discovered airlock not on my carboy :(

So, I went to check on my belgian pale ale that's had 2 weeks in primary, and 1 week in secondary. I got a brand new airlock Thursday, and find on Sunday, that it's sitting nicely on the shelf above with the glass carboy exposed to air.

Someone must have removed it or something, I know it's not going to kill me to drink it, but I'm just a little sad about it.

My plan is to wait another week to see if anything funky grows on it and just bottle it anyway I guess and hope it turns out ok.

The only thing I noticed was some pools of bubbles on the surface. They were present when I first went to secondary and then went away after a few days. I thought it was maybe the last of the yeast.

Anyway, is there any hope this beer will be anything else than something I might have to suffer through to get to my next batch?

Just to get things straight...

It's one of your first batches (else you wouldn't pose this question in the Beginners Forum), it's been in the fermentation vessel for ~2 weeks, and you're just now noticing that the airlock was removed? What is your living situation? Did you just forget to pop it in there, or do you have malicious roommates? Either way, pop that thing in there now!

Anywho, you have two options:

1. Dump the batch now. You'll waste ~5 gallons of beer, and will never know how that batch could have turned out.
2. OR, you could bottle it, wait 3 weeks, and 95% odds say that it'll turn out just fine.

When all's said and done, what do you think you should do?

Sorry, I put it in the secondary last weekend. Didn't have a airlock, so I put some sanitized foil on it.

Thursday I bought a new stopper and airlock, and replaced it. I'm pretty sure I checked it Friday, but sometime between then someone else in my house must have accidentally or purposely removed it. So there is only a 2-3 day window of exposure.

Anyway, I was 100% sure I would get an answer like that, but this is only my 2nd batch so, sometimes just venting is enough to make me calm down enough. I only have 6 left of my first batch, so I was hoping not to have too much of a dry period.

Sanitized foil = just fine.

Yeah, your beer will be okay when all is said and done. Don't rush it, don't over prime when bottling day comes, and sanitize your bottles!

After all that, you'll have tasty beer in the end, I promise. Glad to have been your venting receptacle. /hat tip

Someone in the house removed the airlock?

You didn't notice if they left the straw in the carboy, did you?

Kill everyone in your house now. That will teach them!

The good news is that it's a belgian pale ale which should have a good amount of alcohol to ward off any bad bugs.

The bad news is that either you are already losing your short term memory OR you have someone in the house that does not appreciate how much work goes into making a good beer. PLUS - you are not showing the correct amount of love towards you brew as you only noticed it after a few days.

I check my brew daily (but I also have 3 going at once) just to make sure nothing REAL odd is happening.

Your brew should be fine.

Grinder12000 said:

I check my brew daily (but I also have 3 going at once) just to make sure nothing REAL odd is happening.

Your brew should be fine.

Click to expand...

I only check mine for the first three days. After that, it is maybe once a weekend. I never really worry about it because I don't think that people will pull off my airlocks, thankfully.

Another possible scenario: the airlock popped off the fermenter for some reason and landed on the floor (blockage/carbonation build up; he put it in wet w/o enough friction to hold it in place; etc.), and a roommate found it on the floor and just put it back on the shelf thinking it fell. Let's rule out those possibilities first, THEN go "take care" of the roommates as a lesson. Due process, people!

Screw due process, there is alcohol abuse in progress.