Did I screw my brew up w/ the airlock?

[Cerpintine]

Here is a picture of my airlock:

For my first time I brewed a rather simple cherry wheat with the help of my neighbor.. and I am unsure if I managed to screwed something up. What happened was after the cool down period I added the yeast and closed the bucket. I filled the airlock up to the 'fill line' and then noticed one small part of the bucket wasn't fully closed. When I sealed it I put some pressure on the center of the lid (with my other hand) and this sent a big a big wave of air up into the airlock.

At this point I noticed the water level dropped below the fill line, as you can see pictured above. I also noticed the inner tube filled up with water? Thinking about it I chose to top the water off up the the fill line again, but noticed it immediately started draining (a small amount at first, then progressively to about where it's at now). If you look at the inner tube, it was completely filled (with one small air bubble) but it looks like it's slowly draining.. back into the outer tube?

Is this nothing to worry about? As of this point it's just been sitting for a little over seven hours.

 

[ChshreCat]

What are you filling the airlock with? So long as it's not bleach or something insane like that, you're just fine.

 

[Cerpintine]

I used clean bottled water. Ok, so I haven't messed up the fermentation

Appreciate the help

 

[ChshreCat]

Nah, you just watered down your beer enough to lower the ABV about .000001% is all. Water is fine in your airlock, but to be safe you might want to have something in there with some germ killing power. Many of us put Starsan solution in there since it won't hurt your beer if it gets sucked in, but it'll kill most things that might land in it like the bacteria on the fruit flies that find their way in there. Other folks use cheap vodka.

 

[Spludge]

You have increased your chances for infection slightly, but like Chshre said your probably fine...

 

[Cerpintine]

Is it normal for the water in there to turn like a milk chocolate color? Or do I have an infection? I'm on my way to work and can't look it up.. I'll check back later.

 

[Zen_Brew]

It's normal for some crazy looking off colors and horror movie looking bubbling foam as the Krausen forms. With a wheat base and cherry in there it will probably be pretty colorful.

In the future if you need to snap the lid down again after putting in the primary, just lift the lid off the airlock and lift the top piece of your airlock off until you get the lid seated, then put it back on. The wort has just been exposed to the air during transfer anyway, and very soon will be making enough co2 to blow all the air outta there anyway.

+1 on the starsan or vodka in the airlock as well.