Is my beer still good?

janisovic · Sep 13, 2018

Hi,

Today I decided to bottle my beer and something weird happened that didn't happened before and I am worried that my beer won't be successful in the end. So the fermentation was done a week ago I read its a good thing to leave it couple of days, not to bottle it right away. So I have an airlock with metabisulfate in it and i wanted to open the lid of the fermentation bucket and i pressed it down a little bit so the airlock bubbled but it went the wrong way and few drops of metabisulfate dropped in beer...It didn't seem a lot so i bottled the beer i didn't make a big deal out of it. So my beer is now stored but i am starting to get worried about this few drops of metabisulfate dropping in my beer...will the beer still be good? will the carbonation happen? (hoping on not killing all the yeast with 4-5 drops)

Thanks,
Brewer from Slovenia

RPh_Guy · Sep 13, 2018

No problem at all.

Relax. Don't worry. Have a homebrew!

NGD · Sep 13, 2018

RPh_Guy said:
No problem at all.

Relax. Don't worry. Have a homebrew!

He never said how much he was brewing. I realize he’s likely brewing 5gal/20L. Would this be a different story if it was a 1 gallon brew?

I find beer to be pretty forgiving of mistakes...of which I’ve made many.

RPh_Guy · Sep 13, 2018

NGD said:
Would this be a different story if it was a 1 gallon brew?

Nope!

Facts: Saccharomyces is generally sulfite tolerant. The amount of sulfite from a few drops diluted is very small. The antimicrobial activity of sulfite results from the action of molecular SO2, which is pH dependent; beer pH would require a VERY large amount of sulfite to inhibit Saccharomyces and also quite a large amount to have enough free SO2 to cause an off-flavor.