[mlager]

I love brewing w/ carboy's, I hate not being able to easily sample. I tried to think of an easy way to grab a quick sample while maintaining sanitation and limiting oxygen exposure.

I took a stopper and ran a racking cane down the center and sealed it. Then I ran a brass barb through another whole I drilled in the stopper and sealed it.

1) Sanitize the sampler
2) Hook the gas tube to a regulator off a co2 tank (left tube) and give it a quick purge to remove oxygen.
3) Remove existing carboy stopper and airlock and place device onto carboy.
4) Feed a SMALL amount of pressure from tank to the gas line, and beer will start flowing upwards through the racking cane and out.

Since this picture, I actually put a picknick tap on the end of the racking cane so that I could apply a small amount of pressure to the carboy, then just use the picknick tab to control the flow out to my sampling container.

Before this, I was using a racking cane and my thumb to grab samples, and I had to dip like 15 times, I felt it was too risky. I know you can buy better dampling tubes, but they were pricey, and this was built from stuff I already had. Just thought I'd share.

[forgetthefish]

http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewing/3-piece-thief-plastic.html

This came with my starter kit, one dip into the carboy gets about 2 oz. Plenty for a taste and a refractometer reading.

[richardt]

Glass carboys are not designed for pressure.  Please do be careful about how high you set the regulator (0.5 to 1 psi max) and make sure that there is no way that the fluid out tube can get blocked (e.g., by hops or orange peels clogging the inlet, or the picnic tap closing off the outlet) and result in over pressurization of your carboy.  I'm not wild about the idea of pressurizing your carboy and serving from the tap.

A safer route is to ferment in your SS corny keg.  
There are adapted lids that basically would allow you to do what you're doing with your stopper.  
http://www.homebrewing.org/Cornelious-Keg-Lid-for-Secondary-Fermenter_p_999.html
It is not worth injuring yourself and ruining your livelihood.

[mlager]

Good call on that one, I didn't really think about what the pressure caps of those carboys are... I've only need to apply the smallest amount of pressure to the carboy to get the sample, but even that may be too much.

Maybe I'll start taking a new route, or just buy a proper sampler.

[tygo]

One of these has always worked for me.

[richardt]

Those three piece plastic "thiefs" are really easy to use (and cheap).
http://www.beer-wine.com/products/wine-thief-extra-long-plastic-wine-thief-extra-long