May have a problem.

[apbrewing]

Hello all,
I am new to brewing and new to this forum. I searched around this site to see if other people have had a similar problem but I couldn't find anything. I just brewed my first batch of ale yesterday and have it in a 5 gal glass carboy. Everything went very well until the final step. When putting in the fermentation lock I pushed a tad to hard and pushed it almost through the neck of the carboy. I'm a knucklehead! It is sealed but sitting in there at an angle. I'm not sure I will be able to pull the rubber stopper out. Also I woke up this morning and fermentation has started and is going quite strong. I was hoping that the pressure might straighten up the stopper but now after reading some posts I'm wondering if I would be better off putting a blow off tube. So my question is should I try and pull the stopper out and if it does fall into the beer will it affect it? I'm also worried that I may get quite a mess if I don't use the blow off tube. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely
AP

 

[hayabusa]

use a long (longest you can find) screw and screw it right into the rubber stopper and slowly pull it out with the screw as a handle....

 

[apbrewing]

Thank you for the tip. I will try that. Will that ruin the stopper? Also should a replace with a blow off tube for the time being?

 

[Yooper]

A blow off tube is a must if you're using a 5 gallon carboy. Most of use use a bigger carboy (or a big pail) with plenty of headspace. I use a 7.5 gallon bucket for 5 gallon batches.

My first post here was about pushing a rubber grommit (from the bucket lid hole for the airlock) into the wort so believe me, it happens. If you can't get it out, push it all the way in and use a different stopper or a blow off tube that fits in the carboy. You can get it out after the beer is finished.

 

[apbrewing]

That's is what I've been reading here. I can't figure out why the start up kit I bought didn't come with a blow off tube. I'm going to go to home depot and get a piece of plastic tubing. I read an outside diameter of 1 1/4" should fit. Do you find this to be a pretty standard size for the neck of most carboys?

 

[apbrewing]

Well, I ended up leaving work early on Monday to check on the status of the carboy and bow was there pressure. It looked like it was about to blow. The airlock was still sitting in the neck of the carboy crooked. I tried to pull on it a little bit but it came out leaving the bung still in the neck. I tried to get a long screw started to pull on it and "bloop" into the carboy it went. I rigged up a blow off tube with a piece of 1 1/4" OD pipe and it has been going crazy since. I am on the third day from initial boil and fermentation seems to have slowed a little but it is still going. I bought a new bung and will be replacing the blow off tube with the fermentation lock either tonight or tomorrow probably. Do you think the rubber bung will affect the taste of the finished product? Not that I can really do anything about it now but I was just curious. Thanks again for the advice.
Cheers,
AP

 

[nibiyabi]

I seriously doubt it. I've heard of people doing much worse things and their beers turned out just fine.