[majorvices]

Thanks guys for your opinion. What I really needed to know was how important was bottling given the situation.  This is because, if I had to put my money on it, I would guess the beer is finished brewing.   And if bottle was going to help the beer minimize damage from the current situation by eating of o2 from brew and heading off infection with a little more fermenting, then I felt it worth the risk.  I think I will just go back to my original plan which is checking gravities after 4 weeks of lagering and if the gravity is unchanged, bottling it. 

I guess what we are all trying to say is that we don;t believe there was much if any damage done at all. If you think it ready to bottle then by all means do it, especially if it will make you feel better. My personal experience is that the contact time you are talking about to open air will not greatly impact your beer in a negative way.

Also, nit-picky but "brewing" is the process of creating wort. Once you collect your wort and pitch yeast you are fermenting and/or conditioning/lagering.

[bbump22]

I'd be willing to bet it is fine. I don't even use an airlock until fermentation is finished. If you had Co2 still in suspension in the beer it probably protected the beer from oxidation and contamination.

RDWHAHB.

+1
I ferment in open fermenters with no problems.  Once the fermentation is almost complete I rack to closed 2ndary fermenters under an airlock.

+2?

RDWHAHB