Is it OK if beer/yeast gets into the airlock?

[Grunaki]

I moved a couple of brews over into carboys to clarify on Monday. They'd sat for the better part of two weeks, so I figured they were done fermenting. One of them seems to have woken up a bit though, and some beer seems to have gotten into the airlock, and there's some yeast growing on the bit that moves. Should I clean it out or just leave it?

 

[Vossy1]

I'd clean it once it settles down, you don't want to be enticing infection it can easily track back into the beer from a moist airlock :thumb:

 

[Grunaki]

I'd clean it once it settles down, you don't want to be enticing infection it can easily track back into the beer from a moist airlock :thumb:

Cheers - I just cleaned it out - it's a thin-necked carboy, so not much chance of getting air into the beer.. This only happened during the day today as I checked it this morning and it was fine.. The yeast seems to like this brew as there was a fair bit of it around the rim and on the lid when I cracked the FV open to move it over..

 

[ibrewthereforeiam]

Well, there are a few factors here. Bear with me I'm going to use gallons on this comment. Did you let the beer ferment all the way out? That is very important for reasoning when to rack to a secondary. When you do rack to your secondary...do you use a 5 gallon glass carboy? Also, what size of batch are you brewing...I ask this because if you are doing a 5 gallon batch...you should ferment in a 6.5 and have your secondary be a 5 gallon.

On a side note...if you did let your primary ferment all the way out...there is such a thing called rousing your yeast. This does happen and can be prevented by "shaking" your primary to rouse the yeast in the initial container. In other words, sometimes if your beer hasn't fermented all the way out, it will rouse the yeast when you stir it up to your secondary.

Another factor can be that Co2 is being released and can cause extra bubbling...but I'm willing to bet that since you said yeast got into your airlock in the secondary, either you have a very small container and it's releasing Co2 or you didn't let it ferment out all the way before you transfered.

 

[Grunaki]

it's a standard 23 litre brew.. I had it in the FV about 2 weeks, so I figured it was done brewing and when I moved it over to the carboy I thought it would be pretty static, so I filled it close to the top.. Turns out the yeast 'woke up' during the transfer (I actually threw some of the lees back in as there wasn't so much on the bottom of the FV) but it's being pretty lively for a 'done brew' now.. The airlock 'chugs' here and there.. I got my siphon out and skimmed a bit off the top so that it wouldn't reach the airlock any more.. Surprised at how much it's still going though...