airlock needed for secondary?

[Steiner]

Hey-
I want to know if I need to use an airlock after racking my beer to a secondary. My beer has been sitting in the primary for over 2 months now. I am out of the country and a friend is doing my racking for me. He's not very experienced, so I was thinking that it would be easier if he didnt have to worry about sanitizing and fitting the airlock and could just seal the beasts. I've got quite a few airlocks and explaining it all is a little confusing. I know racking might stir up the yeast and give them a little life, but I wanted to know if I really needed to do this. Any thoughts and opinions would be great. Thanks.

 

[ShortSnoutBrewing]

Simple answer is YES, you need an airlock.
Where you just going to leave the opening open?

 

[Revvy]

The only other thing I've heard is people sanitizing tin foil and covering the carboys with that...But I don't know how comfortable I'd be with that.

ANd I don't know if a small pinhole to vent would be a good idea or not...

It doesn't take much to sanitize an airlock, while he's racking. You taught him to sanitize the racking cane, right? Have him at least drop the old alirlock in the solution, and use that one.


So how's he handling the racking?

When you getting back to your beer?

 

[Blender]

I think that if he cleans the stopper and airlock with hot water that it would be adequate.

 

[Steiner]

Ok, that's fine. I was just going to say he could seal it off with rubber caps that I have instead of worrying about the airlocks. It's not a big deal. I'll just have him do it anyway. I'll be back in early June. It's not worth chancing anything with shortcuts I guess.

I'm just having him run vinyl tubing from my brews in ale pales into carboys and siphoning out the brews I have in carboys into other carboys. It should be fine, hopefully.

 

[Dean Palmer]

Northern Brewer has silicone stoppers with vents that work great for secondary/conditioning in carboys. Low profile and nothing to monitor.