in the first stage of fermentation my valve popped out of the lid of my bucket. There is a 3 inch circle of foam on the lid. is this anything to be worried about? how far down are you suppose to push the valve in?
Insert a piece of 3/8 OD sanitized tubing into the hole and run it into a bucket/cup of sanitizer, its called a blowoff tube. Be extra careful when cleaning the spilt foam, try not to let any get back into the fermenter.
By valve I assume you are talking about the air lock. This is nothing to be worried about, just a very active fermentation. Just swap out the air lock for a blow off tube. Keep that on for the remainder of fermentation or until it dies down enough to replace the tube with an air lock.
Not sure what you mean by a "valve"? Do you mean the rubber stopper or something entirely different? If your stopper blew out, just sanitize it and push it back in. Again, not sure the first post stated how long it has been off.... Nothing to worry about if it has been less then a day as the CO2 would not let anything in. If it has been days, you'll probably still be fine.
OK, that is the three piece airlock....I would just spray it down with some Starsan or your sanitizer of choice and replace it and don't forget to relax.
There is a lot of gas (CO2) coming "out", thus a small risk of anything going "in". Thus, you could either put in a "blow-off" tube or just clean and re-install the airlock.
Same thing happened to me today, only with my first batch in my carboy. sanitized everything and put in a blowoff tube. that was around 4EST. still going strong now.