2010
Home Brewing: Lost Stopper In Carboy, Stopper Fell into Secondary Fermenter
So today was the day that I transferred my home brew from the primary fermenting bucket, to the secondary fermenting glass carboy. All was going well, I got the beer all transferred nicely to the carboy. Had the stopper and airlock soaking in some sanitizing solution. Then came time to put the stopper on the glass carboy.
I grabbed the stopper out of the sanitizing solution, and tried to put in on the top of the carboy while it was still wet. Thinking that I would be able to get a tighter seal and push it down a little further. Because when the stopper and the carboy were completely dry I tried to squeeze the stopper into place, but it would just keep popping back out.
So I started to push the wet stopper on the the carboy with very little force, and the darn thing shot right through the opening, into the carboy and sank to the bottom of the beer.
I didn’t have a second stopper, and I didn’t want to let more air get to the beer (oxidizing it). So I just took my 3-piece stopper and some electrical tape, and taped that to the top of the carboy nice and tight to make sure that no air would be able to get in. I know this isn’t the ideal way to do it, but I didn’t want to loose a whole batch of beer just because the rubber stopper fell in. After all, I’m just Trying to Get By! 
Lesson learned – Dry off the top of the carboy and stopper before trying to put in place!
Does anyone know if this will effect the taste of the beer at all? Or will be harmful to drink after a week or 2 in the carboy with the rubber stopper sitting in it?
2010
Why Use a Secondary Fermenter, What Does a Secondary Fermeneter Do?
Beer in Primary Fermenter After Two Weeks
After a week or two in the primary fermenter, your beer may have quite a bit of foam on top still and will probably be pretty cloudy looking.
A secondary fermenter is used to help clean the beer up. It will give it a much more clean taste, make it less cloudy, and help clear out a lot of the dead yeast and sediment.
So after your beer has had time for its initial fermentation, which may be a week or two, you will siphon your beer into a secondary fermenter. The secondary fermeneter should be a glass container (carboy), and it should be the exact size of your batch of beer. So if you are brewing a 5 gallon batch of beer, chances are you used a 6 – 6.5 gallon fermenter bucket, which is perfect. But when you siphon the beer into a secondary fermentor, you should use a 5 gallon glass carboy. This way there is little to no air space in there with the beer.
Too much air could oxidize the beer. So when you are siphoning the beer into the secondary fermenter, make sure that you don’t splash the beer around, getting air bubbles in it. Try to siphon the beer down the side of the secondary fermeneter, without splashing at all.
Secondary Fermenter (Glass Carboy)
Once you have your beer in the secondary fermeneter (Glass Carboy) you will be able to see the clarity of the beer in the carboy. You should start to see the yeast settle and he beer clear up in about a week.
Once your beer is ready to bottle, you will have much cleaner tasting and clearer looking beer than if you didn’t use a secondary fermenter! A secondary fermenter is not a necessary step in home brewing, but if you are looking to get a better tasting beer with less yeast in it, and have a more true color, we would definitely recommend trying it.
Primary fermenter Photo Credit