Carboy Exposed to Air for a week. Is it ruined??

[the_seabass]

I brewed a Hefeweizen 3 weeks back and used a starter for the first time. This created more yeast activity than I was used to. I was letting it ferment at a friend's house, so I didn't get a chance to come back and check on it for almost a week, at which point I found it with the airlock popped off. I don't know when it actually popped, but I'm guessing somewhere around the 24 hour mark. I decided to sanitize and replace the airlock and worry about it later. From other forums I've read, people have been safe after finding it less than a day later, but this is probably 5-7 days of air exposure.

I was going to bottle today, any chance that my beer is still ok? or should I just not even bother bottling...

Thanks.

 

[MrFancyPlants]

If it was still fermenting it may have been producing enough c02 to hinder oxidation. I bet it still tastes fine. There may be a possibly of fruit flys getting in there though. If you are bottling, I would monitor the carbonation level closely and put them in the fridge if they start to get a little fizzy.

 

[invictusbrew]

While there is certainly a chance that something could have happened to your beer in that time (read infection), it's just as likely if not more so that you will be just fine. Sounds like it was in an area that wasn't high in traffic - otherwise I assume your friend would have noticed and put the airlock back on his/her self or let you know about it right away. I am just assuming here, but I would guess you are using a bucket or a carboy and so you saying the "airlock popped off" and not the lid came off or something similar leads me to believe it was just the small hole opening that was clear - which greatly reduces exposure when compared to the entire bucket lid being off (EDIT: I'm an idiot - it says carboy in the title! xD). Furthermore, I wouldn't worry about oxygen exposure at all since you probably had a good layer of CO2 protecting your beer through that entire period.

I think your worst case here is that a bug or two might have fallen to their demise in your beer - in which case, odds are they'll be floating when you go to rack into bottling bucket (again - assuming on some of your procedures here, I know), and you can just leave them in the bucket for cleanup. The alcohol will kill anything they had on them that would harm you, and while they COULD have introduced wild yeast or bacteria that could change the flavor or sour the beer, my recommendation is to let it ride and see what you get!

RDWHAHB

 

[the_seabass]

Thanks for the input, I will go ahead and bottle and see what comes of it!

It was in a coat closet (during Texas summer), so it is possible the door was opened once or twice without noticing, but there shouldn't have been much activity in the area. From your comments and what I've read, real oxygenation is hard to achieve in homebrewing without actually injecting air into the beer, so worst case I've got 5 gallons of sour Hef

 

[UndeadFred]

Nice explanation from Yooper as always... I would have just said, eh, I'd still drink it. It will be fine. (or in a very rare case it won't... but it will... honestly...)

 

[the_seabass]

Follow up... The batch came out just fine, much better than my first two batches. Has little sharpness to it that I wouldn't always expect out of a hef, but I've paid for worse beers, so all in all I call it a win.

Thanks for the reassurance, I was so mad when I found it open that I almost dumped the whole batch, thankfully I didn't.