Rubber Stopper Fell Into Beer!

[aprichman]

I'm so bummed, the title says it all. I was brewing an all grain batch today. It was the first batch that I developed myself. Everything went perfect, my mash temperature was spot on and only dropped 3F over 75 minutes. Everything was perfect - I just had to seal the carboy with a rubber stopper and airlock. I got it on and noticed I forgot to put san star in the airlock. Whoops! Pulled the whole stopper out and dunked it in san star to fill it up. Went to put it back on and I pushed too hard and the stopper went below the carboy lip. I pulled the airlock and tried to wedge the stopper out with a nut tool. No luck - the freaking rubber stopper fell right into my beer! NOOOOOOO!

Of course I don't have another stopper and my LHBS closed 2 hours ago. I dunked some foil in SanStar and wrapped it over the top of the carboy. Tomorrow I'm going to get another stopper and put it on.

So mad at myself, I spent all day brewing this batch and I might have ruined it. Just hoping the stopper was sanitized properly.

 

[GenIke]

I'm 99% sure you'll be fine if the stopper was clean when you started. I'm a little curious how you get it out after fermentation is over though

 

[Subdivisions]

I've had my whole arm in the beer and it came out fine.

Here's the trick to get the stopper out. You'll probably want to flush all the yeast and trub out first

 

[aprichman]

I've had my whole arm in the beer and it came out fine.

Here's the trick to get the stopper out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEiMpIoCamM

Thanks man! I feel a little better about it after watching that video.

 

[Subdivisions]

I edited my post to say you might want to clean most of the trub and yeast out before trying that or it may get messy.

Good luck and I'm sure your brew will come out fine

 

[fuelish]

I acccidentally ended up with the stopper in a batch of beer years back, I forget how the heck I got it outta there, but I know I didn't use the trick in the video above. Beer was fine... I rinsed all residue out and shook the carboy upside down until the stopper fell into the neck and I THINK used a long thin flathead screwdriver to go in through the hole in the stopper and kind of lever it out a bit at a time ...once you get it rinsed out, it'd be worth getting some Starsan in there and wetting the stopper good with it while it's in there....that stuff is like lube on a rubber-to-glass surface
It'll come out easier than you think, and I'd bet good money your beer will be perfectly fine

 

[aprichman]

You guys think this san star'd foil will be okay until tomorrow afternoon?

 

[Subdivisions]

Yep. That'll be fine

 

[RM-MN]

I think your foil top would be fine for then next month or two. Bacteria is what you fear and they aren't smart, good flyers, nor supermen. To get into your beer, they would have to fly up through the stream of CO2 your beer is releasing, holding their breath the whole way because they need oxygen.

 

[aprichman]

Went by the LHBS today and grabbed a hard plastic universal bung. Got my bucket of sanstar out and liberally applied it to the foil and all other pieces making me feel like I was prepping of surgery This time the bung didn't fall into the carboy so at least it was a minor success haha.

I'm fermenting a 1.053 gravity wort with US-05 at 66F and everything looks really happy for the time being. The smell coming out of the airlock is amazing. I'm attempting a Ecliptic Phobos clone which is a red ale single hopped with azacca out of Portland, OR. This is my 1st attempt and I missed the color by a mile but hopefully the taste will be alright especially considering the rubber stopper in there. I can actually see the stopper at the bottom of my carboy right now so at least it's settled out. I have another rubber stopper without a hole in it that I smelled today and it had a strong "rubbery" smell, hopefully that won't impart too much flavor on the beer

 

[JoeBlank]

Had the same thing happen on my first batch in early January. Beer turned out fine, used the plastic bag trick and got stopper out easily. No worries.