My primary was not airlocked all night!!!

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

biggben

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 26, 2010
Messages
172
Reaction score
2
Location
port angeles
Ok so here is my problem i have 6 gal brew pales one of the lids had a gash in it because my drill bit caught it wrong when i was boring out the whole. any ways i plugged the gash and thought it was sealed, NOPE! so now my primary has been allowing a small amount of air all night. i pitched the yeast into it at 12am and discovered the problem at 11 am this morning. there is a large head of krausen on it. i changed the lid for a new one and its bubbling away nicely now. it looks fine do you think that this will be a contamination issue?
 
It's probably highly dependent on the area your beer is in...what's floating around in the environment and such and whether or not it's near an AC vent, but I would say chances are you'll be fine. Sounds like your yeast are doing quite well and they'll likely outcompete anything if something did happen to go in there.
 
It doesn't really matter, you really don't need an airtight seal on your fermenter. The co2 coming out of there would protect your beer. In fact many folks with arthitis and other issues don't snap the lid down on their buckets anyway, and may folks just put tinfoil, plastic wrap, metal cookie sheets or even plexiglass sheets on top of the bucket instead. It's really not crucial to be tight. The bad stuff are not ninja acrobats, they really can't get into stuff. The co2 coming out will prevent anything getting in.
 
Almost certainly not. For one thing, the active yeast create a very inhospitable environment for bacteria. For another, during fermentation, CO2 is being actively produced and will be forcing air out of your carboy. For another, I'm willing to bet you observed careful sanitation techniques.

Count to ten. Deep breaths. Now relax and go read a book. Your beer is just fine.
 
Back
Top