Keep beer or toss it???

[WarEagleBrewer]

Well, I suppose you don't ever need a blow off tube......until you do. Just lost almost half of my 5.5gal Yooper's Cream Ale to the bottom of my ferm chamber. Scared the crap out of the wife! So.....I sat the carboy out, uncovered for about 30 mins while i cleaned up. I cleaned and sanitized the bung and airlock and put it back on. It's currently in the ferm chamber....but should I even try to keep it? I've never experienced this before. It was my first time. I'm like a virgin......

 

[bucketnative]

Why would you ever throw out a beer you have yet to taste?

 

[WarEagleBrewer]

Why would you ever throw out a beer you have yet to taste?

Wisdom spoken

 

[MaryB]

I doubt any nasties managed to take hold in 30 minutes, especially since alcohol is present already.

 

[Sadu]

Half a batch of beer is better than no beer.

 

[madscientist451]

Even if some wild yeast got in there, the yeast you pitched seems to be going good enough to finish the beer and make alcohol. Most wild yeasts are alcohol intolerant so they'll just die out. Unless you do totally closed fermentations and transfers, you would be opening the fermenter anyway, this time, it will just be opened twice. Next time, dunk the stopper in some star san and put it back on the carboy right away and then clean up the mess.

 

[MaryB]

I keep a spray bottle of Star San back by the fermenting buckets in case I need to sanitize something. Makes it handy.

 

[RevKev]

Considering that many places also openly ferment I feel perfectly comfortable taking an airlock off

 

[RM-MN]

Well, I suppose you don't ever need a blow off tube......until you do. Just lost almost half of my 5.5gal Yooper's Cream Ale to the bottom of my ferm chamber. Scared the crap out of the wife! So.....I sat the carboy out, uncovered for about 30 mins while i cleaned up. I cleaned and sanitized the bung and airlock and put it back on. It's currently in the ferm chamber....but should I even try to keep it? I've never experienced this before. It was my first time. I'm like a virgin......

Since your beer was actively fermenting (which is why the airlock blew off) the yeast is producing lots of CO2 that is streaming out of the top of the carboy. Bacteria, being notoriously poor swimmers, can't swim into the carboy against that current of CO2. You could leave the airlock off for days before enough bacteria got in to give your beer an infection.