Airlock Blown Off For a Week

[gmcastil]

I brewed a blonde ale two days before a week long business trip, racked it to a 6 gallon Better Bottle, and fitted with an air stopper. The final volume ended up being about 3.5 gallons, so I had a ton of headspace and didn't think I would need a blowoff tube. I pitched a starter and oxygenated heavily upfront.

Came home last night with a clogged airlock and stopper laying on the floor. I cleaned out a new one, sanitized, and replaced it. Now I'm just wondering what my options are. Is this more or less of a guaranteed infection or is there a chance that pitching a huge amount of healthy, viable yeast might have prevented infection? Also, with it open to the outside air for that long, is oxidation a certainty or does it really need to be stirred or dumped in order to do that?

 

[msujack]

Let it sit and find out. There may be nothing that got into your beer. It may turn out just fine. I wouldn't worry about it til its done. Then if its wrecked, trash it. However, I find its rare to have a wrecked beer, no matter how hard we try to mess it up.

 

[Mojzis]

Why make a starter for 3.5 gallons??

Next time fix a blow off tube. It's very easy.

As far as infections go: 1) alcohol kills bacteria when its concentration goes above 2%. 2) established yeast colonies out compete other nasties. 3) back in the day monks didn't have sanitizer or stoppers and better bottles.

As far as aeration goes I don't think you need to aerate. Your a week in and you started with a whole lot of yeast. Yeast use oxygen to multiply and since you started with most likely more than enough, your beer is likely almost finished by now. Take a gravity reading to see. You don't want to aerate further, this could give the beer an off taste.

Just wait things out. Bottle when you're supposed to, etc. Don't dump a batch until months from now when you are absolutely positive it is ruined. Good luck, hope this helps.

 

[ncbrewer]

I was planning to start using a larger fermenter to avoid blow-off’s without using a blow-off tube, but your experience is giving me second thoughts. What was your O.G.?

 

[Toga]

If you can use a larger fermenter then go for it. My fermenter is huge. It will hold 9 gallons of liquid to the top. I typically do 5-6 gallon batches. The extra head space eliminates the need for a blow off entirely.

 

[ATXweirdobrew]

I would just go ahead and bottle it and drink it. If there is a bacterial infection it will not harm you. Its really funny letting your friends drink it and when they ask about the off flavor inform them that there is a bacterial infection. Wait for the hilarity to ensue and then inform them that the infection wont hurt them at all. If it turns out too bad to drink then pour it, make another batch, fix blow out tubes, and move on with life with a new lesson learned.

 

[djfriesen]

If you blew out your airlock, chances are there was plenty of CO2 being offgassed. As long as it was left undisturbed, there should have been a nice blanket of CO2 to keep O2 out of your BB early on, and enough alcohol to keep out infections after high kraeusen. I'm sure you're fine.

 

[cepster]

If you blew out your airlock, chances are there was plenty of CO2 being offgassed. As long as it was left undisturbed, there should have been a nice blanket of CO2 to keep O2 out of your BB early on, and enough alcohol to keep out infections after high kraeusen. I'm sure you're fine.

This. If the C02 pressure was enough to blow out the airlock, I'm sure it's strong enough to keep out the low number of airborne beasties there may be hanging around.

 

[gmcastil]

Why make a starter for 3.5 gallons??

The batch was supposed to be 6 gallons, but since I was doing a partial boil, I added the last half of the extract at the end and didn't let it completely dissolve, so I wound up with what would have been a lower gravity wort, so I only added enough top off water to get the gravity to what it was supposed to be.

Let it sit and find out. There may be nothing that got into your beer. It may turn out just fine. I wouldn't worry about it til its done.

That was my intent - I'll taste it at bottling in another couple of weeks and see, but I'm not really all that worried.

If you blew out your airlock, chances are there was plenty of CO2 being offgassed. As long as it was left undisturbed, there should have been a nice blanket of CO2 to keep O2 out of your BB early on, and enough alcohol to keep out infections after high kraeusen. I'm sure you're fine.

That was my thinking too, particularly since there was no airflow in the room for the entire period, although the "heavier than air" argument is really only valid for short periods of time. A small volume of CO2 above the beer for a week is going to wind up escaping into the atmosphere in pretty short order - beer like mine was had air above it for most of the time that I was gone.

If you can use a larger fermenter then go for it. My fermenter is huge. It will hold 9 gallons of liquid to the top. I typically do 5-6 gallon batches. The extra head space eliminates the need for a blow off entirely.

I'm not sure I agree with this. I had something like 3 gallons of headspace above my wort and it clogged the hell out of my airlock. I've concluded that the only sure way to avoid blow-offs is to use a blow-off tube. Period. And from now on, every carboy gets a blow-off tube, no matter the amount of headspace or the gravity of the wort.

 

[Screech]

Same thing happened to me the other day only I was gone for 2 days. I have heard of a couple of people fermenting in an open container. I think the co2 should protect it mostly, especially since air can only enter through the small hole in the carboy. I'm not too worried about mine and I prob. wouldn't worry about yours, especially since can't change it.

Kevin