Forgot to add water to my airlock...

[fayderek14]

So I am very new to homebrewing. We brewed our first bath last friday night and we forgot to add water to the airlock. I filled the airlock up to the fill line today. The beer has been sitting in the fermenter for 6 days with an empty airlock on top. Is the beer ruined? If not what should I do from here.

I attached an image of what the airlock looks like after an hour and a half. Thanks!

 

[brewsnthelou]

I did the same thing on my first 2 batches ( brewed a couple of days apart ) one got infected, the other was fine. Wait and see, but if you dont see infection... Should be ok
Cheers

 

[fayderek14]

Probably a stupid question but how would I know if it is infected and is there anything that can be done to cure it or is it essentially done?

 

[grasshopperfirestarter]

Post a pic of what's inside after a week or two.

 

[DirtyOldDuck]

As long as the rest of your sanitation practices are reasonable and the fermentation began within a day or so of pitching your yeast, your beer should be fine. Fermentation produces a lot of CO2 filling the headspace in your fermentor and leaving a layer over the fermenting wort. This off-gassing helps prevent other little nasty things from getting in your fermentor.

 

[stpug]

I'm betting that it will be fine. I assume 24 hrs lag phase; at least 4 day ferment (outpressure); a couple days of offgassing (also outpressure). This would mean that you got your airlock filled with water prior to the lack of outpressure with the exception of the initial lag phase, which is also the big time for infection to set it. However, bacteria don't crawl so it would have taken some decent inpressure flows to really take something in (i.e. rapid cooling of the wort).

 

[wilsojos]

Also, don't use plain water...either sanitized water or vodka.

 

[Cyclman]

Probably fine. If it tastes nasty, it's infected. Or, sometimes infected beer tastes sour but still drinkable.