Stopper in the carboy

Hey everyone, thanks first off for the incredible resource and help with in-depth topics, and stupid ones (like this one)

We were putting the stopper in the carboy while getting ready to aerate and the stopper slipped through and fell in the wort. We decided to leave it in there and proceed with setting up to begin the first stage of fermentation. Any thought on if this is going to affect quality/flavor?

The fun part is going to be trying to get the stopper out of the carboy after we transfer to second stage. I know...total bonehead move, haha.

Happy Brewing everyone!

I've done it before. As long as you sanitized it, you shouldn't have a problem.

I've done it a number of times without any noticeably negative effects. I actually have a stopper that is a fair way into the neck of the carboy and I'll have to push it in to rack the beer. Good times.

My trick to get it out is to fill your emptied carboy with hot tap water, let it sit for a minute, tip the carboy out in the sink or whatever and use a pair of needle nose pliers to pull the now-soft stopper out. Works every time for me.

You can also use a plastic shopping bag the same as you would to get a cork out of a wine bottle.

Assuming the stopper was sanitized (probably even if it isn't) there's no ill effect. I did the same thing on my first Apfelwein.

To remove just use a plastic bag, worked great.

ChshreCat said:

You can also use a plastic shopping bag the same as you would to get a cork out of a wine bottle.

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Ha ha. Excellent idea.

I'm on my first brew and pushed the airlock grommet down into my fermenter. I left it there too

Nugent said:

Ha ha. Excellent idea.

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Wasn't mine, and I agree.

Since you should sanitize your stopper before putting it on the bottle, there's nothing wrong with one sitting in your beer until you rack to secondary or bottle.

I've done this twice now, and have since thrown away the rubber stopper I had and replaced it with a harder rubberized plastic (I think it's rubberized plastic) bung that is impossible to push in.

It didn't seem to affect my beer, and it also didn't seem to affect the starter I did that I pushed it into.

You'll be fine

I've pushed a #6.5 stopper into a carboy before... Part of my solution was to upgrade to a larger #7 stopper that I can't push all the way in.

frolickingmonkey said:

I've pushed a #6.5 stopper into a carboy before... Part of my solution was to upgrade to a larger #7 stopper that I can't push all the way in.

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Yup, get a bigger stopper. I'd break my thumbs trying to push any of my stoppers into a carboy.

-a.