Beer Contamination?

[cmsisler]

Put the cover on the bucket, filled the airlock with water and inserted the airlock into the hole and wouldn't you know the seal in the hole pushed through into the wort. I tried to fish it out with a spoon but it was impossible. I eventually washed my arm up to my elbow and grabbed the seal. What are the chances my brew will turn out alright?

 

[roxy35]

haha. i'm new here, but from my understanding that is not going to be good. i'm hoping you at least washed your hands/arms FIRST, but even if you did that isn't a thorough sanitation.

 

[Butter]

Pretty good actually. There's a thread on this forum of stuff people have dropped in their cooled wort and still made beer. Everyone has a mishap like yours so don't sweat it. Yeast are pretty hardy soldiers, they'll still make beer.

 

[GySgtLynn]

Actually it is very hard to infect your beer... You will be fine...

 

[Revvy]

Welcome, you are now officially a homebrewer. You have a 99% chance that your beer will turn out perfectly fine.

This is one of the most common first post on here, in fact one of the folks who first came on here with this very issue, became a mod.

Next time this happens, forget about it, you do increase the risk of damage to your beer by trying to fish it out rather than just leave it in there, but many of us have sunk body parts in our fermenters just like you and the beer has turned out fine.

In fact I have a thread just about that very thing, read the stories here, while you relax,

What are some of the mistakes you made...where your beer still turned out great?

 

[Revvy]

To put it in perspective, I posted this over a year ago, and the beers both turned out fine.

 

[cmsisler]

Thanks for the responses and links, I feel a bit better. I'll hope for the best and if it doesn't work out I'll chalk it up to experience.

 

[BOBrob]

Hmmm ...so far I have dropped the phone, a lighter, a pen, a rusty paperclip, and a spoon. The phone,lighter, and pen I fished out; the rest stayed until bottling. The beer was good,& fine.MmmmMmmm Dang buckets. Cheers