Lost Rubber Stopper in Glass Carboy

[Grasslands]

By the way, the beer did come out fine, of course.

I haven't noticed any nasty creations yet so I'm going to say that either my stopper was sanitized enough or there was already enough alcohol in the wort. Fingers crossed!

 

[Jethin]

Found a cool old carboy on the street with a stopper stuck in the bottom. Maybe the last guy thought it was trash? Read this thread and pulled the stopper out in under 2 minutes using a cloth napkin. Thanks y'all!

 

[Franco]

this idea is assuming the stopper has no hole in it.

after your beer is racked out, put some very cold water in it. Turn the carboy upside down and try to get the stopper to plug the opening. Then warm the carboy with light heat. Do this as slowly as you can to avoid thermal shock to the glass which will make it shatter. Maybe start with warm water poured over it, then step up to hot tap water and then heated water. As the air in the carboy expands it should push the stopper into the neck. If your lucky it may get pushed all the way out. Otherwise, hopefully it will be wedged in there enough that you can grab it with pliers or stick it with a sharp hook or something to pull it on out. BTW if you want to try this method don't be tempted to lubricate the opening since you want the stopper to be wedged in the opening to avoid it slipping back in to the jug. oh, and good luck. If it works we all need to have a moment of silence for Mr. Wizard

I came here to post the EXACT same advice, complete with the Mr. Wizard reference and everything!

 

[kclark2690]

I'll tell you something, I've brewed enough beers not to worry too much about my batch getting infected. But this gave me a fairly hardy laugh when it happened. I just sanitized a universal stopper, and closed the opening with the rubber stopper inside.

Does anyone have any amusing names for my batch of beer?

Call it "The Botched Brew" or Check out the upcoming brewery in Eugene, OR!

https://www.facebook.com/BotchBrewingCo

 

[jcom87]

place a cloth napkin or tee shirt into the carboy (hold onto the end) and jiggle the carboy so the stopper lands on the napkin. Very slowly pull the napkin out. The stopper should come with it because the coefficient of friction between the napkin and the stopper is greater than the coefficient of friction between the stopper and the glass carboy. It may help to lube the neck of the carboy first.

You are a GENIUS!! I just had this same thing happen to me, so I looked on this thread for answers. I tried this and it worked like a charm! Thanks!

 

[n8tivebrew]

I lost my stopper in my 5 gal glass carboy after I had racked to it for secondary. Later on during bottling I rinsed the carboy out and immedatily used a plastic grocery bag to get the stopper out. Luckily I had ran across this thread prior. Thanks all for the solutions.