Airlock came our of the fermenting bucket

[drb471]

I've been anticipating finally getting my beer bottled up this weekend, as it's been sitting in the buckets for a few weeks. We noticed this morning that the airlock had been knocked off of the bucket by a falling object. I'm not sure how long it was out for, but it was less than 24 hours. The fermentation was done a couple of weeks ago, so there wasn't any "burping" going on anymore.

Is my beer ruined because of this?

 

[Vigo_Carpathian]

There's only one way to find out.

 

[Desvio]

Most likely fine, beer is pretty resilient so bottle away.

 

[pharaohpierre]

I think you should be okay. By now the alcohol content should be strong enough to fight off minor bacteria and random wild yeast if its only been like 24-36 hours. The only issue I can think off would be oxidation. Like Vigo said, there is only one way to find out. Take a sample of the beer and drink it, see what you think. Then, I would bottle and continue the process as usual.

 

[jtratcliff]

Yes. It's absolutely ruined. The only thing left to do is to bottle it up with the proper amount of priming sugar and send it to me for proper disposal.

The CO2 blanket should protect from oxidation, the small hole should prevent most "stuff" from falling into your fermenter, and the alcohol present in your beer should kill most critters that do make it in.

At this point, I'd say if you get an infection it's from a missed sanitation step, not from the dislodged airlock.

RDWHAHB.

 

[RM-MN]

^^This. Very few organisms can survive in beer because of the alcohol and the acidic nature of it. Fewer yet can survive the CO2 that is laying above your beer. Unless you worked at it you cannot get all this CO2 to come out that little hole.