easiest way to pull a sample from a 6.5 gal carboy?

I ferment in 6.5 gallon carboys and have a hell of a time getting samples. My turkey baster simply will not reach. I have been just letting the beer set 3 + weeks then siphoning into 5 gallon secondaries and getting a sample then. I have a brew I need to dry hop but there is still slow airlock activity so I want to check the gravity and do not want to stir up the trub by tilting the carboy or siphoning..... Is a wine thief long enough to reach 5 gallons in a 6.5 carboy?

A wine thief should be long enough, mine is.

Alternately, can you sanitize a piece of tubing, jam the tubing over the baster, and then use the baster bulb to suck liquid into the tubing?

I have a wine thief & hydrometer, and a refractometer. I use the refractometer (Only $30.00 on ebay) with a post-fermentation calculator. I'm a bit worried about infecting my beer.

+1 to the wine thief.

+100 to drinking out of the wine thief when you are done with your sample.

I just did the turkey baster with tubing....what a mess. If the beer isn't infected now I think I could sneeze into it and it would be fine lol.

Now I feel terrible, but I gotta ask what happened?

I am guessing that I should have specified that I was imagining a 2' piece of tubing that extends out of the carboy and can easily be held on to, instead using a very short piece just long enough to bridge the gap between the baster and wort and that there is a story about fishing a small piece of tubing out of a carboy waiting to be told.

RogerMcAllen said:

Now I feel terrible, but I gotta ask what happened?

I am guessing that I should have specified that I was imagining a 2' piece of tubing that extends out of the carboy and can easily be held on to, instead using a very short piece just long enough to bridge the gap between the baster and wort and that there is a story about fishing a small piece of tubing out of a carboy waiting to be told.

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The infection comment was a joke lol... I sanitized everything and it did work.....eventually. every time I would draw a sample most of it would fall back into the carboy bfore I could get the siphon out. it took about 10 draws to get barely enough to float the hydrometer.

Get a Fermtech Thief, you can move it up and down if it's in the liquid at all and fill that sucker all the way up. If you don't have a place to get one of those a large veterinary syringe (Tractor Supply Company) with a piece of long 5/16" tubing over the end works just as well.

I just stick my autosiphon in and get just enough for the sample tube

wyzazz said:

Get a Fermtech Thief, you can move it up and down if it's in the liquid at all and fill that sucker all the way up. If you don't have a place to get one of those a large veterinary syringe (Tractor Supply Company) with a piece of long 5/16" tubing over the end works just as well.

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DAMMIT! I never even thought of that! thanks! ( I have stuff laying around and friends who dairy farm so that stuff is readily available to me.)

I too use the thief. In a carboy/better bottle I sometimes have to dip twice to get a large enough sample, or I'll transfer the sample into a sampling column to take my measurement and then drink it. One warning, I have dipped the thief in too far and sucked up some trub that clogged up the thief, so don't go too deep.

sgillespie said:

I just stick my autosiphon in and get just enough for the sample tube

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Ditto on the autosiphon. The only thing i don't like is it drips after its removed from the carboy and when you turn it over to pour into the test tube it runs everywhere. Any suggestions on this?

1+ to the auto-siphon. If you don't have one you should get one. I also just make sure it's sanitized and dip it down into the carboy to retrieve a sample.