I am a first time brewer....brewing my first batch - and the craziest thing happened to me last night. I siphoned my beer from my primary into my secondary (carboy) and the stopper broke! The rubber piece of the stopper actually fell INTO my carboy and now floats at the bottom.

It was sanitized - although of course the top of the rubber piece had been exposed to the air for a few minutes.

My question for you all is....should I just leave it there? Will it make my beer taste weird? Or should I re-siphon my beer back into my primary and try to fish it out somehow?

What a sad way to ruin my first beer.....

Appreciate any advice from those of you who have been doing this for awhile...

Thanks - Amy

I would just leave the stopper where it is.

Trying to get it out would probably be even more detrimental than just leaving it.

Your beer will probably turn out fine.

If you have not already replaced the stopper with another one do so. If you don't have a stopper then sanitize a bit of Saran wrap and place it over the carboy opening.

Good luck with your beer and please let us know how it comes out.

- Scott

I actually disagree with Stihler on this one. No offense Stihler.
Depending on the type of rubber your stopper is made out of, you could end up with funky rubbery tasting beer by leaving it in there. My advice would be to rack your beer from you secondary, BACK into your (freshly cleaned and sanitized) primary. If you are careful with your racking, it would pose little problems to your beer.
Its a small price to pay to have a good tasting first brew.

Cheers
Dave

Yeah Dave is probably right.

I hadn't considered how nasty a rubber stopper can smell and probably taste.

It probably would be best to transfer off of it.

Trying to remove the stopper without racking would probably be a real pain though.

- Scott

I had this happen once and beer turned out fine!! Maybe it was the beer gods looking down on me but, there was no rubbery flavor at all and I would have noticed.haha

Same here, had it happen to me and left it in with no issues. Good luck either way, I will say it is easy to get out after the beer is gone lol.

ok... this is kind of hard to explain, but i'll give it a shot!



empty out the carboy and let the inside dry out.

stuff a plastic grocery bag into the opening and leave about 5 inches hanging out.


then flip the carboy upside down and try to get the stopper to lay on the plastic bag at the point where the neck of the bottle starts.

then pull the bag out, the stopper should get "caught up" in the plastic bag pull right out.


I saw the owner of my LBS do this and I was in AWE!

Let me know if you need a better explanation and how it turns out.


-J

A friend of mine sent me a YouTube link which I believe shows exactly the method Jshakour is talking about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDr9B5ebuRo

This is pretty cool!

- Scott

Wow.

That is.......amazingly cool!
Thanks for the tip and the link!

Cheers
Dave

Darn. I wanted to give input, but you all covered all the bases I was going to discuss!

That cork in the bottle trick works!! I did it last night.haha

I am a roll with it kinda brewer & i would leave it alone.
Your beer should be fine. I have dropped stuff in before & i leave it.
Of course i am lazy though & only do a primary.
You might want to get a stopper that goes on the outside of the carboy.

jeepguy wrote:You might want to get a stopper that goes on the outside of the carboy.

I agree totally! I picked up a coupla carboy caps last time I was at my LHBS, and I know I will never go back to stoppers. One of my pet peeves with my stoppers was that, when the carboy neck was wet, the stopper wouldnt seal very well (it would just keep popping out). Also, my stoppers all smelled funky. Just that old cheap rubber smell. I dont have those problems anymore. Carboy Caps - - - I dig 'em!

Cheers
Dave

Thanks, all! Per your advise I just opted to leave it in there - I'll let you know in about 2 weeks how the batch turned out! And thanks for the advise on how to get the damn stopper out later - a relief to know that I don't have to replace my carboy, too!

I did put aluminum foil/plastic wrap over the opening - hopefully that will help keep the air from getting in. I figured that CO2 has to get out, though, so I put the top (plastic part) of the stopper w/Vokda through a small hole in the aluminum foil (then surrounded it with plastic wrap. No bubbling at all but maybe that is OK....I'll let you know.

Amy