Dilemma - Stops/Airlocks/Pipeline..

[hoaxci5]

I have 2 carboys and 1 bucket for fermenters.. 1 carboy currently has Scottish Wee Heavy secondary (2-3 more months) My bucket has an amber that I just brewed 2 days ago. My other carboy is empty so I wanted to brew today, unfortuantly I can't find another stopper. LHBS is over an hour away so i'm not going just to get a stopper, I don't know any local homebrewers.. so I either have to wait, or can I just take my Scottish Wee Heavy and move it into a keg at room temp? If so do I still purge the oxygen out?

 

[BendBrewer]

You can use some aluminum foil for now. I would put it on the most fermented beer and use the air lock on the new batch.

And the next time you are at the LHBS, pick up another bucket and 4 or 5 air locks. They're cheap.

 

[hoaxci5]

So I can just put aluminum foil over top of my Scottish since it's in secondary and it will be fine like that for the rest of the process?

And I know they are cheap.. I just managed to lose one so I'll be buying several because of that

 

[Mongrel]

Have a hardware store nearby? Pick up some tubing that fits the neck of the carboy. Blowoff tube is good to have anyway.

 

[hoaxci5]

Kids are napping and if I wait until they get up I'll be up to late brewing. (or I could do it tomorrow..)

 

[RIT_Warrior]

So I can just put aluminum foil over top of my Scottish since it's in secondary and it will be fine like that for the rest of the process?

And I know they are cheap.. I just managed to lose one so I'll be buying several because of that

I'd trust the foil over the primary more then I trust the foil over the secondary. The primary is actively pushing CO2 out, so the chance of air getting in is very low. The chance of air getting in is also low for the secondary, but I think that happened to 3 of my batches (I'm preparing to get verbal abuse for this, so I'll explain).

I don't secondary, but instead I just leave it in the primary as long as I need to. I read that not using an airlock is a good idea, so I tried the "foil over the carboy" method with 1 beer, a "loosely set the lid on the bucket" method with another, and a "push down the lid but leave the airlock empty" method for a third. All of these batches now smell like a green apple surprise, which mean acetaldehyde, which I think points to oxidation.

I don't think leaving it semi-open was a bad idea, but I think I should have switched back to it being totally sealed as the krauzen started to drop. The reason I think it didn't work for me when it has worked for others is that I cooled down my brews by leaving the windows open in my apartment. Because it got very windy on occasion, I think the constant changes in air pressure allowed oxygen in to oxidize the beer.

I'm still running "empty airlock" with my most recent brew, but I'm filling it up the moment I think fermentation is starting to slow, just so I can avoid potential oxidation problems.