A couple weeks ago I brewed a mild ale and fermented in a big mouth carboy. After a week I moved it into a secondary carboy (I know there will be questions on moving to a secondary. I did it because of the large amount of sediment in the primary). I kegged it today and in cleaning the equipment realized that the center piece of the airlock was missing. I am pretty sure this was only during the secondary and not the primary. What can I expect from this brew?
Airlock question
- Thread starter szap
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You increased your risk of infection, but it's by no means guaranteed.
There was a route in for nasties, that's bad
The hole for nasties to enter was small, so that's good
primary was over, so there was no active fermentation to provide outward pressure of C02, that's bad
primary was over, so there should be enough alcohol to kill most nasties, that's good
fruit flies could still get in, and they carry acetobacter, which eats alcohol to make vinegar, that's bad
So is your frogurt cursed?
Who knows...
All in all, I think you're just going to have to wait for the gorillas to freeze to death...
There was a route in for nasties, that's bad
The hole for nasties to enter was small, so that's good
primary was over, so there was no active fermentation to provide outward pressure of C02, that's bad
primary was over, so there should be enough alcohol to kill most nasties, that's good
fruit flies could still get in, and they carry acetobacter, which eats alcohol to make vinegar, that's bad
So is your frogurt cursed?
Who knows...
All in all, I think you're just going to have to wait for the gorillas to freeze to death...
Yeah, you should be fine.... The the most likely danger is fruit flies, but if you didn't see any, then I wouldn't sweat it.
If it tastes funky at bottling/kegging time and I mean nasty, not just "green" then you might need to think again. But if you had the little cap on, and just the inner bubbler part was not in place, your risks are minimal, IMO.... No worse than removing the lid to pull a sample for testing gravity, I would think.
I'm of the persuasion that racking to 2ndary to get it off the trub isn't really needed unless you're doing extended aging (months to years, eg barleywines). The extra risk of contamination and oxidation aren't worth the "potential" benefits.
If you want to harvest yeast before a big dry hop, or you want to rack onto fruit or oak, or some other flavor enhancer, then 2ndary might be appropriate. But trub shouldn't be a problem for the 2-4 weeks of typical primary. You should be able to easily rack from above it and leave most in the fermenter.
It's totally your call. Plenty of people always 2ndary and make great beer. Just giving you my rational for not including it as a regular part of my process and why I don't think it's always necessary.
