Dropped a pen into my Primary!

[BURTSBEERS]

I started home brewing last month and my first batch is just about ready to drink this sunday. I started my second batch, an irish cream stout, on tuesday and everything was going well until I noticed the airlock was bubbling over with foam and dark liquid. I looked into this online and found I shouldnt be alarmed but that I should clean the airlock. When i removed the airlock to clean it I attempted to clog the hole with a pen which then slipped through the hole and into my delicious beer. I rushed into the bathroom and cleaned my entire arm with soap and water then removed the lid from my fermenter and reached in to remove the pen which was floating in the foam on top. I then re-sealed the primary and put the cleaned airlock back in place. I hope I didn't ruin my beer please let me know what you think.

 

[unionrdr]

I hope you rinsed the soap off real well. You could've just sanitized a pair of tongs & fished it out.

 

[acefaser]

Should be fine. Next time dont plug the hole. If its pushing out that much co2 then nothing will be able to enter during the short time you clean the airlock. Next time (if) make sure you sanitize your hand or use sanitized tongs to get things out of your beer. Washing your hand in soap wont sanitize it and you can still pass nasties to your beer.

 

[Brewratt]

Breath, don't freak out, monitor the brew for signs of infections, give it a taste when you check the gravity. When it's brewed up, bottled, and ready to taste; taste it. If there are any problems during brewing, or off flavors, you'll at least know why.
Infections suck, they really suck, but they happen. It's almost (but not really even close) like surgery, even the best surgeons make mistakes and lose patients.
In the church of home-brewing I follow the teachings of Papazian, so my advice... RDWHAHB

 

[Revvy]

Next time just leave whatever falls in where it goes. Trying to fish it out may actually cause more damage than leaving it in. I don't want to freak you out more than you already are, but I doubt you cleaned out from under your fingernails did you? So on top of already dropping in the pun you put something that was nearly impossible to gaurentee the cleanliness of, though a hard pen is less likely to harbor nasties than our skin (unless someone was doing something nasty with said pen. )

Let me put it this way....I posted this last year...

The beer is fantastic.

And I posted this, just two weeks ago...

I bottled two batches yesterday. While I was putting caps into my vinator to sanitize for the second batch I dropped one from the baggie into the bottling bucket while I was racking it over. I just shrugged my shoulders and continued on....

But I'm sure since you did clean your arms you more than likely dodged a bullet, many folks have done a panic move and reached in without having the presence of mind to clean first and their beer survived, so yours probably will too.

But next time, if something falls in, which is inevitable, unless it's something that you need like your driver's license or your cellphone, just let it be.

Why don't you read some of the stories of stupid stuff we've done, in this thread. What are some of the mistakes you made...where your beer still turned out great?

 

[BURTSBEERS]

I did rinse of the soap and I would have preferred to use tongs but it was such a dark beer and the foam is so thick I couldn't see a thing. I had no idea it was even floating on top until i reached in. Also I keep my finger nails pretty clean i might just be trying to reassure myself but I'm just hoping my brew isn't ruined.

 

[Petho]

I once had a fly land in my open bucket fermenter and promptly sink into the wort.
Tasty Fly.
I think he tried to drink his way out, didn't work.

 

[plumbob]

What Revvy said (he seems to say good things).

Next time just sterilize your poking utensil ans you won't have to worry about dropping it in there. But definitely don't fish it out even so.

 

[Transamguy77]

I read the title and was thinking how I dropped my stir bar in my most recent batch of Porter, then I see Revvy posted about his and now I feel better! I'm sure your brew is fine

 

[StophJS]

+1 on not bothering to fish it out. Doing so really is just further liability. I've definitely done stuff like this before and it is always scary and you want a definitive answer, but the truth is that there really isn't one. You will just have to wait and see what happens. I recently brewed a holiday ale which by all accounts should have become horribly infected but did not, and then brewed a cream stout which went swimmingly and somehow became infected. Time will tell, but for now RDWHAHB

 

[BURTSBEERS]

Beer turned out to be delicious, I might have to drop pens into all of my batches. I'll be giving them out as Christmas presents if I don't drink them all by the 25th. Thanks for all the advice

 

[BrewMU]

These things hap-pen. There's no write or wrong way to handle it, at least that's what I ink. Just to be on the safe side, maybe you should drop a penicil-in it.

 

[jmadway]

I dropped a dirty-ass rubber band in a brown ale once. 4 weeks later, my Rubber Brown Ale tasted great!

 

[scoundrel]

You could have dropped it in the boil, so things could be worse.

 

[acefaser]

Thanks for the update. Most the time these threads go and we never find out how it turned out.

 

[gregpio85]

Its a good thing there's no ink between dropping pens into fermenting beer and cancer.

 

[tedscastle]

Its a good thing there's no ink between dropping pens into fermenting beer and cancer.

At least not yet.

 

[Brulosopher]

I did rinse of the soap and I would have preferred to use tongs but it was such a dark beer and the foam is so thick I couldn't see a thing. I had no idea it was even floating on top until i reached in. Also I keep my finger nails pretty clean i might just be trying to reassure myself but I'm just hoping my brew isn't ruined.

Hilarious! You'll look back a year (and thousands of dollars) from and laugh at this experience. Man, oh, man...

If your beer turns out delicious, you better not forget to dip your dirty fingernails in for subsequent batches.

It'll be fine, pal

 

[nukinfuts29]

Keep some star san in a spray bottle, and next time just spray your arm. I will leave a lot of things in my beer, ink isn't one of them.

 

[mikelikesit2000]

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.Thats hilarious. I'm sure it will be fine.