Word to the Wise...(with photo)...

Hey all, just wanted to share an experience and some worldly advice...When brewing beer, Sh#t gets hot...lol...Dont grab a brew keggle with bare hands...It ruins your brew day...lol...I was heated up my hot liquor in my new brew keggle and I was confused by the new bright shiny object and decided to pick up keggle off of the burner with bare hands...lol...Ummm BIG mistake...I think this beer (with all expenses of the ER and burn unit consult will be more that a case of Utopia and at least 3 Tactical Nuclear Penguins)......2nd degree to all fingers and 1st and 2nd to part of palm and thumb...Loss of overtime shift tommorow......But ill be back at the brewing in the AM...Gonna call it Scalded Dog IIPA...lol...Take care all...

Buddy of mine did that a few weeks ago. Burned him right through welding gloves. Nasty, nasty, burn.

Sorry forgot about the profanity lol...

Ouch! I've been there - but maybe not quite as bad.

btw: if a hose comes off your wort chiller and starts spewing hot water into your wort, don't grab it with your bare hand.

Ouch. Good luck with that.

Sooo, at the ER, did you tell them how you did it? I can just imagine the rolling eyes. I'd have come up with some story (hot pan while cooking, etc).

My wife is from Sweden and she has these very nice thick knitted oven mitts that her great grandmother made. They are sweet and she lets me use them for brewing.

She said that her grandmother probably wouldn't mind b/c they make their own vodka in Sweden at home. Beer is nothing. I love my mitts.

Stay safe.

~Diz

how hot did you have the keggle??? i used to work fast food and have had my whole hand in a deep fryer at one point and it was nowhere near as bad as that looks. get solarcaine for that does wonders trust me.

I just recieved the keggle and was boiling a few gallons to heat it up and check how well it held Temp and to scrub out the inside arounds the welds and the like. As far as the ER went, they were very inquisitive about the brewing process....It was like a teachable moment...lol...

I have turned off the burner onder my HLT, and not 5 seconds later, tried picking it up. Not a good turn of events. I call them "Stupid Brewing Tricks". :fro:

If you are brewing on a turkey fryer, and the flame burns below any of the metal frame, the legs will be hot, even after only a few minutes. Do not grap a leg in order to shift it's position with bare hands. I had a minor burn, but a brew buddy of mine got his whole hand around the leg before he realized it and had a major burn that required medical attention.

A friend of mine got me a pair of these for Christmas, I keep them in my brew kit.



Orka 17" Silicone Oven Mitts. They are great for lifting hot kettles, moving stands, and putting on puppett shows for yourself during those long waits between hop additions.

I had them with me on big brew day, and a bunch of brewers borrowed them to move their kettles to the chilling station.

You can get them on amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000RYSQB4/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

They're expensive (though I think he found them on woot or overstock.com cheaper.) But I think they are worth it at any price. You feel no heat through those puppies...or should I say whales?

I was lifting my 12 gal. brewpot into a utility sink in my back yard with no shirt on one summer day, my beer gut sticks out so I have a nice little scar to go along with the rest of them.

Hmmm.... Burnt hand from first time using keggle: check. Burnt hand from relocating hot turkey fryer by grabbing leg: check.

Amount of time spend with hand in 4-qt mixing bowl of ice water: unmeasurable.

Some friends got me a couple nice thick Williams-Sonoma PINK oven mitts. I use them when dealing with any brewing equipment during the process now.

Another one I wasn't expecting was the first time I used my keggle for actually brewing a batch. I chilled with the IC and then drained the 70F wort into the fermenter. Got the fermenter packed away and went to flip the keggle upside down to drain all the hops and break material out of it. It wasn't hot enough to cause blistering, but the skirt on the bottom of the keg was still hot enough to burn my hand. Again, now I use oven mitts for EVERYTHING.