Rubber Stopper Retrieval

I accidentally pushed the rubber stopper too far into my glass carboy. Any suggestions on how to get the damn thing out? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Chopstick in the hole and a little keg lube in the neck oughta do it.

The stopper actually completely fell into the carboy. Its not stuck in the neck. My apologies for not explaining the situation well enough. Thanks.

Leave it. Go buy a new one. Use foil on top if you can't get a new one. Maybe you could chop it up somehow after you get the beer out.

Give this a shot..

While I have not tried a plastic bag, a common cotton kitchen towel will work as well. It should probably be thicker than the floursack towels commonly used to dry dishes. It should also be thick enough to handle some stress ,
Roll it up a bit with one corner pointing out.
Turn the carboy upside down.
Stick the towel into the carboy so the towl forms a loose funnel inside the carboy neck.
Shake the carboy (no easy task) until the stopper rolls into the towel funnel.
Pull on the towel so the stopper comes in towards the carboy neck.
Put the carboy on the floor (if done right, the stopper will stay in the towel).
Pull firmly and the stopper will remain in the towel as it is pulled out of the carboy.
Repeat as necessary.
Post responses to forum post when others perform experiment.

I agree that in this case a towel would work better.. Should have posted that.

I just went with the first clip showing how to do it...

cervecero86 said:

The stopper actually completely fell into the carboy. Its not stuck in the neck. My apologies for not explaining the situation well enough. Thanks.

Click to expand...

I meant after you had racked your beer and cleaned your carboy with the stopper still in the carboy.

Should have made that clear, sorry.

Any updates on what you've done in the meantime?

CrazyJames said:

Give this a shot..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLMH0NrdfNE

Click to expand...

I have actually done this to my 1/2 gallon growler to a rubber bung and it works (with the towel).

+1 on CrazyJames and brrman video suggestion. i've done this personally and it works like a charm.

Leave it in the beer, foil the top and get a new one untill fermentation/secondary complete. Then after racking off the beer, rinsing the yeast out and otherwise cleaning. Then take a piece of wire, make it into a long "J" form, with the hook only large enough to stick through the hole in the stopper.
Turning over the carboy so that the stopper is in line with the neck, run your "J" through the neck and stopper. Pinch the "J" to one side of the stopper and pull through the neck of the carboy, it helps if the neck and stopper are still wet with sanitizer (slippery stuff!).

Cheers

This situation actually happened a while ago. When it did happen we didn't have an extra rubber stopper so my buddy and I came up with the hair-brained idea of fishing out the stopper with an uncoiled coat hanger with the reasoning being that the stopper would add off flavors if we just left it floating in the wort.

After a few tries we were able to get the coat hanger through the hole of the stopper. We just let the stopper hang above the level of the wort and directly rested our airlock on the neck of the carboy. To keep oxygen from getting in, we wrapped a crapload of electrical tape around the airlock/carboy neck. It was a pretty ridiculous situation but the beer turned out okay.

So i have an empty carboy right now with a rubber stopper just chilling on the bottom. I haven't tried anyone's suggestions yet, but I will post once I succeed in getting it out. Thanks for all the help!

Had the same problem last week. I used a hops bag and a mechanical grabber. Took a couple tries, but I was able to get the bung inside the bag and pulled it right out.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000CMFK0Q/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Sounds like the towel trick might be easy tho.