Bung down

You know what I did a couple weeks ago?? I was sampling my cider, and I got a little ****ty. When I put my bung back on I pushed too hard and it went dropped into the carboy, into my cider and sunk to the bottom. Sploosh. Is there any way to get it out?? I have a feeling that bung will be in that carboy forever.

Second issue: I'm bulk aging my cider in a glass carboy (the one with the rubber bung in it). My cider is clearing, but there's a ton of sediment at the bottom. Is it normal to bulk age with a thick layer of lees at the bottom like that? I added potassium sulfites a few days ago and backsweetened with some concentrate. Should I rack again or is this okay?

There are tricks for the bung (stopper). Given the stopper in there, I'd rack it off to secondary.

The commonly reported trick, which may be easier said than done, is to put something like a cloth napkin or handkerchief (or rag) in the bottle (after removing the cider) so the cloth is sticking out the neck, and is also beyond the neck on the inside, flared out. Tip up so the bung rolls onto the cloth, and pull the cloth out. The theory, which may take more than one try to work in practice, is that the bung gets pulled along with the cloth and slides back out the neck, since it's touching the cloth, not the sides of the bottle.

I think I have actually gotten this to work once.

A plastic shopping bag works perfectly for this. I've used it to get corks out of wine bottles. You just push about half of it in, turn the bottle neck down, get the cork so it's sort of pointing at the neck and then pull.

Take a length of galvanized 12.5 gauge high-tensil electric fence wire that is a few inches longer than your bottle is tall.

Using a pair of Vice-Grip pliers and another pair of heavy pliers, like lineman's pliers, bend a short "U" on one end, forming it to have about a 1/4 inch gap in the middle of the "U".

Next, clamp the Vice-Grips tightly onto the straight end of the wire to create a handle for this new tool.

Wet the inside of the bottle and drain. Insert the bent end of this wire tool into the bottle and invert the bottle.

Use the wire tool to position the narrow end of the stopper into the neck, then hook the rear of the stopper with the tool, grab the Vice-Grip handle with both hands...and PULL!

While someone else is holding onto the bottle from the other side, and pulling in the other direction!

I haven't used this procedure on a bung stopper yet, but I KNOW that it will work.

I tried it on a synthetic cork that pushed into a wine bottle, and it worked like a charm

Pogo