Transferring to another vessel during primary ferment due to leak?!

[markowe]

* DELURK * Awesome forum here, time to actually wade in.

I have just been trying my hand at really simple cider using store apple juice. Got a brew foaming and bubbling merrily away. But disaster has struck, I just realised my vessel (more like a big glass jar than a carboy - using what I have) has a crack at the bottom which is very slowly but surely shedding my precious brew. I need to get it into a new vessel as I don't think fermentation will be finished for a good few days as yet. How should I do that? Just tip the whole lot, lees, foam, cider and all into the new container (being careful to keep things sterile of course) and let it sort itself out? WILL it sort itself out? Or should I siphon off just the cider? Or should I not touch it at all and try to patch up the leak somehow?

Real pain, it was supposed to just be a little test, so no great disaster, but I'd like to salvage it really.

Advice appreciated!

 

[Pappers_]

If its cracked glass, I don't think I'd try to fix it for fear that it would just break. Dump into a new container gets my vote - what you worry about are off flavors associated with oxidizing the cider, but if its still actively fermenting, I think the yeast will use up the oxygen you add during the transfer/dump.

And welcome!

 

[markowe]

Thanks mate. Right, I am with you, just want to avoid aerating it as much as possible when transferring? But otherwise it ought to all settle out and carry on where we left off?

The crack is kind of hairline, that's why I didn't think anything of it, but I suppose it's not outside the realms of possibility it could spread catastrophically!

 

[markowe]

Well, I just got the whole lot in the end and dumped it unceremoniously into another container and sure enough it soon settled out to where it had been before, started bubbling away and produced a new head of foam, so seems to be safe enough to do. Can't see why it wouldn't be I suppose, but I've always had the feeling with that sort of thing that you aren't supposed to touch it or move it around too much (like with my cheesemaking experiments ). Mainly I hope I haven't contaminated it in any way.