Will a 3-piece airlock go dry in two weeks?

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whoaru99

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Have batch where fermentation is on the downward slope and it's in a ferm chamber currently sitting at 64F. I'll probably raise the temp to 66F tomorrow morning before I head out on two-week trip.

Question is, will a 3-piece airlock go dry over that time? I'm using vodka in it.

And, if it does go dry, how much risk of infection is there?
 
I use star-san and leave it for a few weeks, i drink vodka! its your choice tho....
 
I use star-san and leave it for a few weeks, i drink vodka! its your choice tho....

Yeah, I've used both. Happened to have the vodka bottle handy this time around.

That is a good point though. The Starsan may have lower evaporation rate.
 
fwiw, I had six 6.5g fermenters going at various stages when I left for a two week tour of Italy, four using s-locks and two using 3-piece, using vodka. None of them were even close to dry when I returned - even while the traps in all the sinks and toilets were dropping dramatically while our area sweltered through four days in the 90s...

Cheers!
 
Last time I started a batch right before leaving for a month in vacations, I did the only real viable and sure not to dry out option:

I used a blowoff tube with like 4 liters of water in the bucket... There you go... solved... I could leave without worries.

I heard of liquidless airlocks but never tried them...
 
some of the best beers ive made have been forgotten for ages and found with no liquid in the air lock.
keep in mind there is a protective layer of c02 ontop of your beer.
 
What's done is done. I'm in Brazil and the beer is in the USA, with a three piece airlock. Thought about doing a mini blowoff type of arragement but the trip got moved up so it is what it is now. Keeping the fingers crossed at this point.
 
some of the best beers ive made have been forgotten for ages and found with no liquid in the air lock.
keep in mind there is a protective layer of c02 ontop of your beer.

This. I'm not saying it can't happen, but the physics of wild spore getting through the holes in your dry air lock's cap, down under the bell, back up the outside of the post and then down the inside of the post and into your beer are very, very small. Also, when the bell isn't supported by liquid it falls right onto the post creating a pretty good seal. It's not airtight, but it is still a seal. The CO2 layer on your beer will help protect against O2 getting to the surface of your beer. The time which your wort is most likely to get infected is before fermentation starts and after you remove the airlock to bottle/keg etc. After fermentation has begun and during the rest of it's stay in your fermenter it's pretty safe, even if your 3 piece airlock goes dry.
 
Update...

The liquid level in the airlock did drop a little, about 1/8", but nowhere close to having an open airlock.

For potential future readers, this was in a fermentation chamber with setpoint at 67F.
 
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