Did this contaminate my beer?

[NebEknoh]

As I was adding water to my wort, the top of the pitcher of water fell into my wort. I quickly fished it out with my finger tips, I did not completely put my hand in the wort. I've been thinking about it all day and would like a quick answer if possible. Anyone have any thoughts if it probably contaminated it or not? I have it in the primary fermenter, its plastic so I can't see through it. Im going to wait about 5 days and then check on it. If there is anyone out there who had something similar happen to them, let me know how it turned out! If the beer ends up being okay i'm transferring it to the secondary glass carboy and we are going to call it B&J's Pitcher ale. My dad and I brew our own ale. (Ben and John) Kind of thought it was funny. It's a steam beer. Also, I heard is pretty easy to tell if its contaminated or not I.E the smell of roadkill?
Thanks for the help!

Cheers & Happy brewing!


-Ben

 

[jekeane]

Is it possible? Sure. The possibly increases the dirtier things that touch cooled wort. Were you just picking your nose with the fingers you dipped in the wort?

I would be surprised / amazed if you had a problem with an infection due to this. Sanitization is super important but we often worry way to much about things as brewers.

 

[phyllobeddo]

While cooling wort one brew day I had a "chip clip" or similar clip pop into the wort when it was about 140 degrees. The beer was just fine.

 

[FatDragon]

There's no way anyone can give you a quick yes or no answer. You most definitely introduced some bacteria and probably wild yeast into your beer. That happens to every beer - every dust mote that lands on the cooled or cooling wort will do that and even well-sanitized equipment isn't going to be sterile or completely free of microorganisms. Every beer we brew has bacteria and wild yeast in it. 99 times out of 100, if you follow good brewing and sanitation practices, your pitched yeast will outcompete the wild yeast and bacteria and you'll never know they were there.

Having a pitcher lid fall into your wort increases the amount of wild bugs (unless it was well-sanitized), and dipping your fingers into the wort will do the same thing. That will increase your chances of an infection for sure, but much more heinous things have been done to wort without causing an infection. In other words, you're probably fine, but either way there's no way to be certain one way or the other until it's been fermenting for a while.

 

[feinbera]

You're very very very very probably fine – the yeast you pitched outnumber anything you introduced millions to one, there are whole threads of people doing far worse to beers which came out fine.

That being said, it might not be a bad idea to get some StarSan, mix up a tiny batch in a spray bottle, and have it on-hand for emergency sanitation of equipment/fingers when sh!t happens in the middle of a brew day, as it inevitably will.