"leaf in the boil" on google didn't really do much for me. Go figure But I literally had a small , brown leaf in the fermenting bucket after I dumped everything in. I have no idea how long it was in there. Could have been a minute , could have been a half hour. I know it was in there while it was hot so I'm not too worried about infection. Worst case scenario is some added bitterness (I hope)?
Worse case scenario is that your brew gets infected and you have to dump the lot. It also infects all your equipment, which leads to a string of expensive failures, which you can't pin down, resulting in dumping multple gallons of failed beer. Most likely scenario is that it will turn out fine
If nothing else you can give it a cute name. Do not ask me about my Dog Lick IPA. It was a great beer, but the name is appropriate.
That's when you pull the trigger on brewing sours only. You spend every dime on additional carboys, the wife leaves you, the kids get 2 Christmases, and you wonder where you went wrong.
... until you taste the first pull on your 5yo solera system Oh wait! I forgot we were talking worst case
This happened to me on a pale ale 2 years back, except it was with helicopter seeds from our silver maple tree. Actually, a lot of them made it into the boil kettle and I had to keep fishing them out during the boil. (it was a windy day) There were a few that I missed and they made it to the fermenter. The beer turned out fine with no off flavors, so i think you'll be good. As long as it was in the boil I'm sure the heat killed anything nasty. Shouldn't effect the flavor either I wouldn't think. I named my batch "Whirligig Pale Ale"
I have an IPA called June bug, didnt notice the june bug until i racked into the keg. Beer was great.
You optimistically neglected that the leaf was a deadly poison. The good news? No need to worry about infected equipment.
