does bubbler have to have water in it?

Wow. You sleep that close to your fermenter? The bubbler is supposed to be an airlock which keeps stuff outside the fermenter from getting in the fermenter. I'd continue as normal, checking the SG and see what happens. If the SG stalls at a high value, you _may_ have a problem.

Cheers

: I emptied the water out of my bubbler because it was keeping me awake and : now I'm wondering if that was such a good idea. I've put hot water back in : half hour ago but it hasn't bubbled since. Will this affect anything? : : Brian : Hi Brian

It will take more than 30 minutes for the CO2 pressure in the fermenter to get high enough to make the water in the air lock bubble. Assuming fermentation hasn't finished you should see the thing bubbling soon. If there's no bubbling tomorrow take a hydrometer reading, and then again the day after. If they're the same readings then fermentation has finished.

I find the bubbling noise keeps me awake too, but have put a small sponge in the top of the airlock which quietens it a lot. Throwing a towel over the whole thing works, but not nearly as well as the sponge.

As for causing any harm ... I can only guess. If the water wasn't out for too long and the room was enclosed then my guess would be that everything's OK. I'd take the lid off the barrel and have a look inside - if you see any insects inside I'd bin the lot and start again. If any insect are still alive leave them to die in the manner we'd all like to go, and then bin the brew. If you decide to let the fermentation finish and then bottle the beer, mark all bottles clearly ... just in case something's infected the it and you need to bin it later .... or give to relatives you don't like! (Joking!)

Out of interest what beer are you brewing?

Cheers Tony

Hi

Some brewers of course ferment without an airlock and with the lid off anyway. Certainly most of my brews have been fermented in an open bucket with just a clean towel thrown over to keep nasty things out. I have never had a contamination problem.

Regards

KGB

Nah... no problem. As another poster said, a lot of people do "open" fermentation anyway. Also, most infection vectors are straight down, as in "dust settling" type motion. It would be almost impossible for anything to worm in thru the twists in the common airlock types (as long as the airlock is clean).

An aside: I think Pasteur used an open flask with a serpentine neck for his experiments (similar to the "triple-ripple" style airlocks). There was nothing in the necks; they just prevented dust from entering. I think that I recently read that one of those were still sterile after over 100 years, but I can't find the reference right now. Google for: pasteur flask to see a lot of references.

Derric

everything's

Thanks for the info. I'm bottling Cooper's Ale. Hope to get a distiller soon, too, as I like spirits more and it's legal to distill in NZ. It's illegal in the US where I'm originally from.

Brian