*rant*

How f@#%ing stupid can I be? I brewed a tripel two nights ago and put it onto the WLP550 cake that I racked a blond off of. I tasted the gravity sample of the blond and felt it was phenomonal. Maybe the best I've done. Clear as a bell (due to the yeast's sloooowwww fermentation) and golden in color. I was mighty proud. Well, tonight I popped into the brew closet to check the tripel's temperature and flashed the light on the blond to admire the clarity and color and noticed that I DIDN'T FILL THE MOTHERF#@KING AIRLOCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I know that I shouldn't worry, and I'm only mad at this point, but I'm finally slowing down with brewing and trying to make some great extract beers to assure myself that all grain is within my grasp. I guess I'm still not beyond rookie mistakes.

GGGGRRRRRR!!!

Don't sweat it. As long as nothing actually falls in it will be fine.

If its fermenting then there's a blanket of CO2 protecting your beer.

Is it visibly fermenting? If so, it's producing CO2 and therefore preventing oxygen and nasties from getting in. You'll be fine.

EDIT: DrinksWell beat me to it.

I wouldn't let a little thing like that keep you from going AG. I made two AG batches in one weeked and realized afterward that I had forgotten to vorlauf both times. Still made good beer.

No no no, the tripel is all good. It's the beautiful blond that had a dry airlock, with no CO2 to keep stuff out. Nothing fell in, but it's more of a "Tim, you stupid mofo" moment. I really wasn't looking for advice, just needed somewhere to scream my brewing brains out.

And mickyD, I won't let it deter me.

if you need to vent, this seems to be the right place to do it! haha

cuinrearview said:

No no no, the tripel is all good. It's the beautiful blond that had a dry airlock, with no CO2 to keep stuff out.

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Aaah, I see. So you racked the blonde to secondary, forgot to fill the airlock, and racked the tripel onto the yeast cake from the blonde. Still, assuming the blonde has only been secondary for a couple days I'll bet all is good. That fully fermented brew is not a very suitable home for bacteria. Besides, even in secondary your brew should still release a small blanket of CO2.

So you put the airlock on, but you didn't fill it. BFD. Germs don't fall up, which they'd have to do to get past even a dry airlock. RDWHAHB.

STAD said:

if you need to vent, this seems to be the right place to do it! haha

Click to expand...

That's why I came here. I saw what I did and this page was open. The fantasy football guys just wouldn't appreciate it anyways.

Some of the best beers made are fermented in open vats. If that's you're biggest mistake, you're doing fine.