NEED HELP FAST! Racked to unsanitary bucket on accident!!!

[Pugalicious]

I was transferring to secondary to add 1oz of hops to dry hop. I let my bucket soak in PBW for a while like normal. I then rinsed it out, filled it up with water and forgot to put in my Star-San!!! I let it "sanitize" for 10-15 minutes (of course it was just sitting in warm water). I also put my racking cane, tubing, air-lock, and etc in there to soak. I didn't realize what I had done until I had already racked my wort from my carboy, thrown in the hops, sealed the lid and put the air lock in!

What do I do now?! Should I throw in some Star San? Just relax and have a home brew? (Doing that already though and it's only helping slightly.) PLEASE HELP if you have any suggestions!

Thanks guys!

-Jason

 

[Pugalicious]

Am I freaking out over nothing? Will the alcohol and hops take care of things? It's a 5gal Cal Common with 3oz of hops in the boil and I just threw in 1oz of whole leaf for dry hopping.

-Jason

 

[hoppymonkey]

It'll probably be fine. Nothing to be done now anyway.

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Meh, worse things have happened that resulted in beer. Just ride it out and see what happen.

 

[ACbrewer]

Options -
1. Do nothing - seems to be that others think it will be ok.
2. Make a sour (if it goes bad it probably will be sour)
3. cook it to kill everything again - but this probably won't work as it will probably change it's flavor.
4. Add some sort of preservative - sodium Benzoite, Potasium sorbate, perhaps meta bi sulphate - but A this will kill your yeast, B meta bi sulphates will go away over time, but the other 2 won't leading to problem C which is later carbonation (do you keg?) and the issue of did you use enough preserative to kill everything. One of the case of either the sodium benzoite or potasium sorbate someone said that they were able to ferment a juice that was preserved with it by binding the pereserative with some yeast and adding more - basically add so much yeast that it took the preservative out of solution...
The other problem with number4 is if you don't have preservative on hand, your stuck and pretty much are either 1, 2 or 3 ... really 1 or 3 as it is unlikely you will get good sour just off the bat and probably just 1 as 3 will alter the flavor - like boiling off the hops... Sorry don't know how helpfull this post is

 

[Poobah58]

I would rack it into a sanitized bucket ASAP and hope for the best...

 

[Special Hops]

Just relax. It will be fine. I actually used PBW for a couple of years thinking it was sanitizer. Before I found out about star-San.

Nothing to worry about.

 

[jiggs_casey]

I have had several transfers where the only cleaning I have done is dishsoap and hot water and they've all turned out. "Do I have enough sanitzer?", is usually something I don't think about.

 

[Pugalicious]

Thanks guys! I'm feeling much better about it now, thanks to you guys (and maybe my Chinook IPA I'm drinking). I love this site and all of you on it! Such a great community!

-Jason

 

[P-J]

Jason,

You have no idea what you are in for. Your beer will turn out Great.! No worries what so ever. Relax and have another IPA. You deserve it.!

The ONLY time I'd worry is if I had introduced Acetobacter into it some how. There is a very slim, slim chance that would happen to you unless you also make vinegar in the same brew area. Even then, the chances are very slim.

Prost to you!

 

[Wakadaka]

My guess is you are probably fine as well since there is alcohol in it, the sugars are largely fermented at this point, and you cleaned it well before using it.

Just out of curiosity what were you thinking about doing? Racking to a sanitized secondary?

What would be the forum's suggestion if he had said I racked into a pile of dirt, or oops I accidently racked onto the bucket from my outhouse, it was clean of feces, but might have some left over urine.

would the best thing be to rack into another vessel immediately, use preservatives, or just hope for the best?

 

[HItransplant]

Yeah, anything else you do now either won't help, or it'll make things worse.

Just chalk it up as experience and hope it turns out

 

[Pugalicious]

I realized I never followed up on this thread to let people know how it turned out. For the record, it was totally fine just like you all predicted! I did get an off/vegetal flavor but that had nothing to do with the unsanitized bucket. It took two hours to get my wort under 80f, which can obviously lead to a huge DMS problem. Thanks to my new plate chiller, it's no longer an issue!