What happen if it gets air.

[chris_ce]

I brewed my second batch Sat evening Sunday and Monday the airlock was going good. Get home Tuesday and nothing the center of the airlock wasn't even up. I got home late so I didn't think to much about it until today. Got home today and still the same thing. Doesn't seem to be fermenting at all. Looked and the bucket and finally took the lid off turns out that there are plastic burs all around the top of the bucket. So I think my beer was getting air to it.
I then bottled my beer that was in the secondary fermenter a little earlier than I wanted to. Only by about 4 days. Then I put my second beer into the Better Bottle.

So how bad is the air going to hurt it?

I am still going to let it finish and bottle it and see what happens.

On a side note I put my first bottles into a plastic bucket in case I get some bombs. Does that make me a chicken --it.

 

[TipsyDragon]

a bubbling airlock is not a fermentation indicator its a pressure release valve. use your hydrometer and check the SG. if its gone down then you have fermentation. check again in a few days if its gone down again you still have fermentation.

but to answer your question. your beer is most likely fine.

 

[weirdboy]

First off, your beer wasn't getting air into it. The beer was producing CO2, and CO2 is heavier than air so it will sit in a layer on top of the beer.

Second, you have to work a lot harder than that to ruin your beer.

 

[Revvy]

You never should have moved the beer off the yeast cake....you made the mistake of equating airlock bubbling with fermentation. And then you acted out of panic and moved your beer, instead of taking a gravity reading...

First, fermentation can take up to 72 hours for the yeasties to start, it's called lag time. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/fermentation-can-take-24-72-hrs-show-visible-signs-43635/

But by visible signs they DON'T mean airlock activity.

Your airlock is not a fermentation gauge, it is a VALVE to release excess co2.

If your airlock was bubbling and stopped---It doesn't mean fermentation has stopped.

If you airlock isn't bubbling, it doesn't mean your fermentation hasn't started....

If your airlock starts bubbling, it really doesn't matter.

If your airlock NEVER bubbles, it doesn't mean anything is wrong or right.

The only way to truly know what is going on in your fermenter is with your hydrometer. Like I said here in my blog, which I encourage you to read, Think evaluation before action you sure as HELL wouldn't want a doctor to start cutting on you unless he used the proper diagnostic instuments like x-rays first, right? You wouldn't want him to just take a look in your eyes briefly and say "I'm cutting into your chest first thing in the morning." You would want them to use the right diagnostic tools before the slice and dice, right? You'd cry malpractice, I would hope, if they didn't say they were sending you for an MRI and other things before going in....

Thinking about "doing anything" without taking a hydrometer reading is tantamount to the doctor deciding to cut you open without running any diagnostic tests....Taking one look at you and saying, "Yeah I'm going in." You would really want the doctor to use all means to properly diagnose what's going on. It's exactly the same thing when you try to go by airlock....

You'll be much happier if you get out of that habit...you will find that fermentations rarely don't take off, or just Stop...In fact I've never had a beer not ferment. BUT half of my fermentations, spread out across 9 different fermenters, never blip once in the airlock.

Fermentation is not always "dynamic," just because you don't SEE anything happening, doesn't mean that any-thing's wrong,, and also doesn't mean that the yeast are still not working diligently away, doing what they've been doing for over 4,000 years..

More than likely you will end up with a sutck fermentation, since you took it off the yeast which was the one thing that would acutally ferment your beer, NOT you airlock.

All I can say is take a graivty reading and let us know what it is doing...and stop looking at your airlock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[chris_ce]

Gravity reading right now is 1.020.
I still believe it is fermenting. But you are right I did panic some. Guess I will just call that a learning experience.

 

[Revvy]

Gravity reading right now is 1.020.
I still believe it is fermenting. But you are right I did panic some. Guess I will just call that a learning experience.

1.020 means it is pretty close to being done...now just leave it alone for a couple more weeks.....

And next time, if you have any doubts about what is happening...TAKE A HYDRO READING before you doing anything else, including asking a question on here......99% of the time you won't even need to ask a question or even worry then...you'll KNOW what you beer is doing.