Cracked Airlock a big worry?!?!

[HopHead73]

I put my first batch into the fermentor and when I pushed the airlock into the lid the bottom of the airlock cracked and the airlock will no longer hold any water.
I have a new airlock (and a few backups) coming in the mail, but it will be about 36hours since I started fermenting until the new airlocks arrive.
There is still a tight seal where the airlock goes into the top of the fermentor, but there is just no water in it, should I be concerned about this or will I be ok until the new airlock arrives? Or is there an alternative way to fix this for now?

 

[AfternoonReview]

Sanitize a tube and put one end of it into the opening of your fermenter, and the other end in a bowl of sanitizer. This will work if the tube goes into your fermenter with a snug fit.
I've also heard that people sometimes use a piece of sanitized aluminum foil to cover the top of their carboy.

I honestly think that you'll be okay even if you don't do anything until your new airlock arrives. It's not as easy to infect a batch of beer as you may think.

 

[glenn514]

Take the stopper or o-ring to the hardware store and purchase about 4 feet of tubing that will SNUGLY fit. Go home, put the stopper or o-ring back in, and insert the SANITIZED tubing into the hole, and run it to a bottle half-filled with water. Now, you are good to go...and you have a blow-off tube!

glenn514

 

[HopHead73]

Thanks guys!
Luckily the bottling tubing that came with my kit is the right length and fit snugly into the hole. I sanitized the tube and put the other end in a half filled bottle of sanitizing solution and immediately started to get a big bubble every second or so coming out of the tube, so I'll take that as a good sign that the yeast are eating away.

My only other concern is that I had to use an ice bath to chill my wort and could only get it down to 78degrees when I pitched my yeast and unfortunately my apartment got kind of warm over night and it was still 78degrees about 10hours later. I have since just put it in a rubbermaid tub with water and frozen water bottles (as I have read people suggest to do).
I will check it when I get home from work and will rotate frozen water bottles to keep it at around 70degrees.
Should I expect any possible off flavors from having it ferment at around 78degrees for that long or should I be safe? The yeast seems to be working away with evidence of the bubbles so I don't believe I killed any.

 

[HopHead73]

after about 2 hours in chilled water in a tub and the temp is down to 72degrees and still getting a nice constant bubble every second through the blow off tube so everything seems to be working well.

I should try my best to keep the temp constant to not stress the yeast at all, right?
My plan is to get it down around 68degrees and keep it there

 

[tv187u]

I didn't have any tubing around when this happened to me... I just super glued the crack. Let it dry 30 seconds and filled with water. Still using that airlock to this day.

 

[AfternoonReview]

HopHead,

You'll probably want to use the blow off tube set up you're using now for the first few days of your fermentation in the future. This will prevent the yeast from creating a big mess of your airlock.

You will probably get some off-flavors from having the yeast ferment at 78 degrees, but I'm willing to bet you'll still end up with very drinkable beer. I didn't even bother checking the ferm temps of my first couple of batches and they came out ok - a little yeasty - but ok.

In the future, try to get the fermentation to start cool and end warm, instead of starting warm and cooling down as you have done this time. Ideally, you'll ferment at the yeast supplier's suggested temp. range for about a week, then you can let it gradually warm up. You want the yeast to stay active after that initial few days of heavy fermentation activity so that they can "clean up after themselves". Letting the temperature rise after the initial days of fermentation aids this process.

What kind of yeast did you use, by the way?

 

[HopHead73]

I used Safale s-04 yeast...with a temp range of 59-75degrees
It was at 78degrees for about 10 hours and for the past 24 its been around 69-70degrees and bubbling away

 

[AfternoonReview]

That's not so bad - I bet you're going to end up with very drinkable beer!

 

[HopHead73]

Got my new airlock and when I was going to put it on I noticed no bubbles out of the blow off tube. But after reading many posts about Safale-s04 many people said that it is a fairly fast working yeast and would have the same thing after 2 days.
It has been about 70hours since I pitched the yeast. My OG was 1.051
(which was corrected for temp) and I took a gravity reading now at 1.013.
I'm trying out the Beersmith software and it says my Apparent Attenuation is 73.6% and my Real Attenuation is 60.3%. (if someone could help explain this cause I'm still confused by it). I'm assuming the gravity will drop even more over time?
I plan on leaving it for up to 2 full weeks before I bottle condition it.
There were some small bubbles going on top of the beer and it had an almost oil slick type look to the top. I'm guessing this will all clear off while the yeast cleans up after itself for the next week and a half?
Its up to 70degrees now, but when should I start to up the temp and how high should I let it get?
By smell alone it seems like its going to be a pretty damn tasty beer, just want to keep that going. (its a Hophead Pale Ale by the way)