Bung fell through

I've got a lead on a sweet deal through Craigslist. Part of the deal is a 5 gallon glass carboy.

The problem is, the guy says when he first used it, the stopper that he had was too small. When he went to put the airlock in, the bung fell through and into the carboy. But the bung is too big to just turn the carboy upside down and have it fall out.

He said he's made a couple batches of beer in it and not had any problems. But I'm skeptical. My wife would be using this to make wine. So it would be holding it for 3-6 months. I'm worried that it could easily be contaminated even after sanitizing inside the carboy.

Any ideas? I'd definitely buy it if I knew a trick to get the stopper out of there. My best idea is to get something down in there and start cutting at the stopper. Get it cut into 3 or 4 pieces, then let them tumble out.

Maybe some really long needle nose pliers? Just be careful that you dont scratch the glass....it can harbor bacteria.

You could try the method outlined in this video... .

i was just about to look for the video above ha ha

Flip it upside down and use a pair of hemostats or needle nose pliers and maybe a long razor blade to cut it apart. But it'll be easiest to just flip it upside down.

Roll a plastic shopping bag up lengthwise, and insert it half way into the mouth of the carboy.

Stick a straightened wire coat hanger through the middle of the bag, and fish the bung, small end towards the bottle's mouth, up deeply into the center of the bag until it is completely surrounded by the plastic layers.

Then simply pull the bag, bung and all, out of the bottle!

Pogo

PvtSkippy said:

You could try the method outlined in this video... Cork in bottle trick.

Click to expand...

That method works, kinda fun too!

Freakin-A, that was weird. I'm impressed!

Learn something new everyday!!! I had a similar experience when I bought a 6 gallon carboy, and the bung that was supplied didn't seem to fit well. It didn't pop all the way straight through, but it did get stuck inside the neck of the carboy. So just getting needle nose pliers and drying to pull out from the center hole wasn't going to work. I wound up holding the bung with the pliers as I cut across one side of the bung with a serrated knife. If the bag technique is too cumbersome on a large carboy, maybe your other option is to get a dowel to at least line up the bung with the neck: and see if it can slip out...or if you need to cut it out.

PvtSkippy said:

You could try the method outlined in this video... Cork in bottle trick.

Click to expand...

conpewter said:

That method works, kinda fun too!

Click to expand...

+1 this works. I did this last week to fish a stopper out of a 1 gal glass jug.