A Homebrewing Riddle - The damaged Glass Carboy

Would you really try to move an already broken carboy?

 

A brewhauler won't prevent the broken glass from collapsing inward. Your only option IMO it so siphon/pump the beer out ASAP. As others have said, you don't really need to be worried about oxidation at this point--there should be a enough fermentation still going on to use up whatever small amount of o2 gets in from transferring the beer.

 

This is what I'd do. In the event that any glass shards are in there I'd consider putting a muslin bag, paint strainer, etc around the intake of the auto siphon after fermentation is complete/when transferring to bottling bucket or keg.

 

Sure. If I had, which I do, a brew hauler, I would fit that around the carboy. I wouldn't be picking it up by hand to get it around it and under it.

I'd then lift it into a milk crate to pull it out. I wouldn't be putting any pressure on the neck of it where it was cracked anyways. If it were to shatter in transit, I wouldn't have my hands on it.

 

Edit: If it were me, I'd give up on the beer. I would worry too much about glass being in the final product. It wouldn't be worth it to me. If, if capital IF I were going to drink this, I wouldn't rack the bottom 3 quarts and would stay the hell away from the bottom of your secondary when racking. A coffee filter might enter the equation on the bottom of the siphon hose with a rubber band.

 

Buy a roll of duct tape and wrap the hell out of your carboy. Let the beer finish as planed and use a good filter when you transfer. Good luck!

 

That's a big chunk of glass missing from the pic - I'd be worried about the small shards, too.

A) You may throw some gelatin in. Obviously it won't attract glass, but it may help any shards that do precipitate to the bottom stay there while you rack.

B) Wear some shoes and cover up next time you mess with an already broken glass carboy.

C) Milk Crate under any glass carboy. In working at a homebrew store I've heard of Brewhaulers slipping/ ripping and carboys breaking.

 

+1 to the comment of: “Wear some shoes and cover up next time you mess with an already broken glass carboy.”

I personally only utilize carboys for my lagers (for lagering). When I am dealing with the carboy I take precautions: wear gloves, wear steel tipped boots, use milk crates, etc.

I have read many scary stories about carboys breaking; the most interesting/disturbing one was provided by barfdiggs: “I decided to switch when I was looking at a carboy that was drying, and all of the sudden it literally just shattered. No more glass.”

I recognize that the OP posted: “looking for advice (besides switching to buckets)”. I would feel remiss if I didn’t state: you really should switch to buckets. You were lucky this time around (no injuries, no loss of beer). Plastic buckets (or Better Bottles) are really the way to go.

Cheers!.

 

Too late this time, but next time, you could just siphon it into a low tray for the coolship effect and have a nice wild RIS. That way you wouldn't have to worry about lifting the carboy out of the fridge.

 

Agreed. Fully.

 

Good call. 12 GA pellets won't go through a USAToday Suit from the tower, but .223 will. You should be safe with a carboy transfer

 

So was the beer only on the 8 habaneros for a day then?

I made a habanero tincture with 2 medium sized hab's that I deseeded and deveined first (taking out lots of the potential heat). I added all of the tincture to a 3g keg of imperial porter and it had a solid kick. Couldn't drink more than 22oz of that beer in a session. Then again stronger alcohol tinctures extract better than lower abv beer itself does.....