OMG!! Batch Ruined?

[Mike at Bay]

OK gang here’s my question. I brewed a batch of beer last week. It’s an American pale ale. It has been fermenting in a big mouth plastic car boy in a temperature controlled environment for about a week. Fermentation appears to have been going fine. I’m almost at the end. Today I went to move the fermenter and realized that while the lid was on, and there was a an airlock on top that was full of sanitize water. The actual lid to the plastic jug was not tight. In fact, it was probably fairly loose. So, now my beer has likely had some oxygen in it if not a good deal of oxygen in it for the last week And I need to know if I should just throw it out and start over. Or is there some sort of either corrective action I could take or should I just taste it at the end when I’m done and have it in a keg and see what I’m dealing with? Thanks in advance.

 

[west1m]

The whole week you have been pushing CO2 out no air would have entered. As long as you did not cold crash , not a lot of air would have been pulled back in.
Bottle it or keg it, try it then deside.

 

[Craigerrr]

Batch not ruined!
Carry on and see how it turns out.
Fermenting in open vessels use to be the only way! It is still done today as well.
Brew Dogs had an episode where they fermented a batch of beer on the rooftop of Anchor Brewing in an open top vessel. The dump it or drink it was an overwhelming drink it when they served it to a crowd

 

[Limey]

I "think" I read this in one of the books by David Line, but some of it is common sense: CO2 is heavier than air. So, during fermentation, a blanket of CO2 forms above the wort slowly pushing the air out. The CO2 is sterile - so provided you do not disturb the vessel (significantly) no air will be in contact with the wort. This is especially applicable when doing transfers - keep the vessel you are transfering FROM as stable as possible and put some CO2 into the vessel (bottle, keg, etc.) you are transferring TO and you won't have a problem! Like Craigerrr said - process like this were used in commercial brewing for years!

 

[Mike at Bay]

Batch not ruined!
Carry on and see how it turns out.
Fermenting in open vessels use to be the only way! It is still done today as well.
Brew Dogs had an episode where they fermented a batch of beer on the rooftop of Anchor Brewing in an open top vessel. The dump it or drink it was an overwhelming drink it when they served it to a crowd

Thanks I have calmed down now.

 

[Mike at Bay]

I "think" I read this in one of the books by David Line, but some of it is common sense: CO2 is heavier than air. So, during fermentation, a blanket of CO2 forms above the wort slowly pushing the air out. The CO2 is sterile - so provided you do not disturb the vessel (significantly) no air will be in contact with the wort. This is especially applicable when doing transfers - keep the vessel you are transfering FROM as stable as possible and put some CO2 into the vessel (bottle, keg, etc.) you are transferring TO and you won't have a problem! Like Craigerrr said - process like this were used in commercial brewing for years!

Thank you. Very reassuring.

 

[Mike at Bay]

The whole week you have been pushing CO2 out no air would have entered. As long as you did not cold crash , not a lot of air would have been pulled back in.
Bottle it or keg it, try it then deside.

Thanks. I had a beer and calmed down. Not that beer of course.

 

[J A]

Zero problem...once it's actively fermenting, you could just cover with a clean cloth and it would be fine. I've fermented in plastic buckets with no airlock and just the lid loosely snugged in place so it wouldn't fall off. Cold crashing is a potential concern but it's done routinely with no special accomodations for oxygen ingress. When fermtentation is done, there's a thick blanket of CO2 on top of the beer and even though oxygen can enter as the liquid and CO2 contract with lowering temps, it's a very small percentage by volume. As long as you're not agitating the fermenter pretty violently, you're not going to get oxygen in your beer.

 

[Dave Y]

I've fermented in plastic buckets with no airlock and just the lid loosely snugged in place so it wouldn't fall off.

#MeToo ... well, minus the lid.
My first ... 4 or 5 wheat beers were done in plastic buckets, and the fermentation would get quite vigorous. If I was lucky, it would just blow yeast out of the airlock, but I had a few that clogged the airlock and then blew the lid completely off. Twice.

I thought I'd show that next back of wheat beer, I put a cinder block on top of the lid.
It blew the seal, but the lid stayed kind of in place and then the yeast just oozed out all over the kitchen floor.

This brought on the "Wife unamused face."

Actually, I had the same mess in my 7 gallon stainless fermenter, which isn't pressure rated, so it also clogged the airlock and subsequently leaked all over the garage floor. So, for the Belgian ales I did this year, I used my 14 gallon fermenter for a 6 gallon batch, and a blow off attachment !

Fun to recall this now, not so much when I was cleaning up the mess !

 

[J A]

#MeToo ... well, minus the lid.
My first ... 4 or 5 wheat beers were done in plastic buckets, and the fermentation would get quite vigorous. If I was lucky, it would just blow yeast out of the airlock, but I had a few that clogged the airlock and then blew the lid completely off. Twice.

I thought I'd show that next back of wheat beer, I put a cinder block on top of the lid.
It blew the seal, but the lid stayed kind of in place and then the yeast just oozed out all over the kitchen floor.

This brought on the "Wife unamused face."

Actually, I had the same mess in my 7 gallon stainless fermenter, which isn't pressure rated, so it also clogged the airlock and subsequently leaked all over the garage floor. So, for the Belgian ales I did this year, I used my 14 gallon fermenter for a 6 gallon batch, and a blow off attachment !

Fun to recall this now, not so much when I was cleaning up the mess !

Yeah, monster krausen is an adventure every time! When I used carboys for those really active yeasts, I got in the habit of using a full inch and a half tube stuffed down in the mouth of the carboy and run to a big bucket of Star San. Invariably there'd be enough yeast in the bucket to easily start another batch but it wasn't all over the floor and I could pull the hose and replace with an airlock when things calmed down.

 

[Donoroto]

While CO2 is definitely heavier than just plain air, it isn’t much heavier. However, inside a nominally sealed container where there are no drafts it will gradually rise up and nothing is going to get through it as everyone has said already. It’ll probably be a perfectly good beer