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jfire

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After one week in the fermenter bucket, my Caribou Slobber first batch had stopped bubbling and Sg had dropped to 1.038 and was steady. I just racked it to a 5 gallon glass carboy and tested the sg again WITHOUT SANITIZING the Winethief!!! I've been very good at sanitizing everything and now I'm worried!

What should I look for going forward?

Thanks again,

jfire :(
 
You should look forward to drinking beer. I'm betting nothing happens.

You increase the risk of infection, but it's not guaranteed. RDWHAHB then sanitize your equipment.

1038 is wicked high, what was your recipe? OG?
 
Yeah I realize it's kind of high, after looking around on here. I'm guessing it'll probably take off again in the secondary. I'll keep a close eye on it. Krausen had fallen when I took the lid off to rack. OG was 1.052
 
First thing I would do is RDWHAHB.

Odds of being infected at that point are pretty slim. I'm betting (hoping) that your thief was at least clean, right?
 
With there alcohol being there (it is beer, after all!! LOL) it provides some protection against slight mistakes like that. But as Homercidal says, was it at least clean-ish?

FYI, it is this same principal that fruit additions are often added after primary fermentation since the alcohol in the green beer may keep some minor infections at bay.

Brent
 
There have been plenty of threads on here where people drop less that clean items in their fermenters and they turn out fine. There was a thread a while back where someone knocked a tape measure (which if was anything like mine, was not even remotely clean) into their fermenter and it turned out fine. It's amazing how some people get infections and they follow good sanitation practices and others do grossly unsanitary things and their beers turn out fine.
 
One other suggestion: in the future, don't rack after only 1 week. Give the beer some time sitting on that yeast cake to allow the yeast to better clean up the by products of fermentation.

Many kits, and also the free online edition of Palmer's How to Brew recommend racking to secondary very soon - Palmer has since reversed his position on that in favor of longer primaries and no secondary unless there's a good reason (bulk aging, adding wood or fruit, etc), and many other authorities on the subject advocate leaving your beer on the yeast cake for longer periods. Many folks around here (myself now included) have had great success leaving beers in primary for 3 or 4 weeks and then kegging or bottling, skipping secondary containers altogether.
 
My caribou slobber kit from AHS was a slow and steady fermentation. I used Wyeast American Ale II, and fermentating in the mid 60's (I believe without looking at my notes) it took a good 2 weeks to ferment out. I left mine in primary for a full 4 weeks before I bottled.
 
They changed their tune because some of us took a lot of flaming for having methods that went against out dated thinking. Like not racking to secondary to hurry the beer off the yeast. Or using dry yeast in starters,or re-hydrating them with a little dextrose.
Anyway,I keep the beer in primary for 3-5 days after a stable FG is reached to clean up & settle out more. Then rack to bottling bucket on priming solution & bottle. Condition in covered boxes @ room temp for as long as they need to get carbed & conditioned properly. Then up to 2 weeks in the fridge for thicker head & longer lasting carbonation.
 
Thanks again for all the advice!! Airlock is bubbling again in the secondary! I guess I'll let it stay for a couple of weeks before kegging.

Think I'll RDWHAHB!
 
When I brewed the Slobber, the FG was around 1.006, so you probably have a little more to go. Don't worry about the wine thief, you'll be fine.:tank:
 
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