I had a blow off last night, woke up to a little bit of beer on the floor and beer in the airlock. My question to you is that I used the sanitizing water in the airlock, of it got into the beer during the blow off can it harm my beer? Or me for that matter when I drink it?
You’re fine. just get a piece of foil and sanitize it. Take the airlock off and cover the carboy top with the foil. Clean and sanitize the airlock and replace it.
I don’t even use an airlock for the first few days of fermentation. I just cover the top with foil and let it go. After the blow off is done I just clean and sanitize the carboy top and put the bung and airlock in.
If you used a no-rinse sanitizer, like Star San, no harm. You probably didn’t get any in the beer since it blew out, not in.
Plugging your airlock could be a problem, though.
In haste since I was running out somewhere I just rinsed the airlock and replaced it. That won’t kill me will it?
At this point I would just take off the airlock, put on sanitized foil like previously mentioned, sanitize airlock and hole as best you can. RDWHAHB
the same thing just happened to me. Came home from work to find the airlock blown off. Just sanitize and replace. Next batch I will take the advice of just using a foil cover for the first few days. Any thought on blow off hoses anyone? I have read to have one end in the carboy and the other in a bucket of water. Is that necessary? I also heard that the hoses at first really stink like vinyl.
A 1" tube will fit into the carboy, then submerge the other end into water. I’ve used a 3 piece with elbows for years, easy to clean.
As far as smell, it’s probably the same as your racking tube. Just clean and sanitize first.
I use a 6 gal carboy and have only had one blow. For the blow off tube use a 3 ft length on tubing put in to the stopper and the other end goes into a bucket. i used 1/2 gal of star stan in a 1 gal pail. The tube should be as big as you can fit in to your stopper so that the tube woun’t clog. Also the tube woun’t touch any of the beer so it will not add any off flavors to it. Cheers
If this is happening I would just use the blow off hose for the first few days. Put the hose in a bucket of sanitized water. My blow off hose doesnt stink but Im not sure about yours and I wouldnt think the hose would make the beer stink or smell funny. Just my thoughts.
Here is what I do for just about every batch. After the fermentation slows a bit, I might replace the lid with a standard airlock
I switched to a blow off hose many batches ago, but if I do use an airlock I fill it with vodka in place of star san. That way there is no worries if anything gets back into the wort.
