Worried about contamination

[Neville61]

So in first ever batch I had a pretty quick learning experience... I found out that my beer was fermenting but my carboy was too small to hold all the foam being produced. When I found this out at 5:30am I panicked, sterilized my plastic bucket and in my haste dropped the airlock in the wort. I used the sterilizer on my hands before reaching in to get it but I do not think I sterilized far enough up my arm.

What are the chances that the parts of my arm that were not sterilized can do damage to my beer? Can bacteria be growing and will I know it?

 

[Ace_Club]

I've known lots of people who have brewed "forearm" beers. They all turned out fine.

 

[nilo]

You are mostly fine, relax. Beer is much more resilient that you think. There is a thread here https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/post-your-infection-71400/ about people posting their infection photos. Take a look so you can identify if it happens to you.

 

[Neville61]

Thank you guys for the help! Hopefully i'm not posting to that thread in a couple weeks!

 

[kyleobie]

Yeah, I've had a couple of regrettable things like that happen too. Relax, don't worry, have a homebrew, try not to do it next time. Your beer will be fine.