Floating Thermometer broke in wort

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BIGREDIOWAN

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I'm putting this here hopefully to get more views. I just finished brewing my Pumpkin Ale and while cooling it down my floating thermometer broke in my wort because it hit my wort chiller. The end of it broke off and all of those black bb's in the bottom are now in my wort. Is the wort lost? I'm figuring it is as I'm assuming that's lead in the bottom of the thermometer. Any suggestions?
 
When it happened to me I looked up the brand on the thermometer and it said it was non toxic. I ended up going forward as usual and strained out the bbs and had no issues. Good luck!
 
I had the same issue a few batches ago. After some searching on this forum I learned that they are steel and not lead. I was then just worried about the glass. I filtered my wort through my grain bag as I was pouring it into my primary. I also left a bit if the wort behind in my kettle. The glass will all settle just be really really careful. I drank all of mine and it hasn't killed me yet :)
 
I'm putting this here hopefully to get more views. I just finished brewing my Pumpkin Ale and while cooling it down my floating thermometer broke in my wort because it hit my wort chiller. The end of it broke off and all of those black bb's in the bottom are now in my wort. Is the wort lost? I'm figuring it is as I'm assuming that's lead in the bottom of the thermometer. Any suggestions?

A google search revealed these threads.....

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/broken-floating-thermometer-wort-lead-steel-163960/

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/broken-thermometer-wort-301440/
 
I would take that advice of looking it up. But I would imagine in this day and age there's no way those beads are gonna be lead in a therm used for foodstuffs. A bigger concern is getting them and glass fragments out.
 
It's a True Brew Floating Thermometer, from what I'm reading it has steel bb's not lead ones correct? I agree about the glass though..........
 
**** I know that's the right answer too and I spent a lot of time on this beer. Just when you think you've figured this hobby out you get thrown a curve ball! :mad:
 
So what we're doing is we found all of the steel bb's so there is no issue there. We found three large pieces of glass, but of course we are missing a few. We took a clean t-shirt, cut it up to act as a filter for us, sanitized it with Starsan and we're filtering the beer through that. I think that's the most we can do. I doubt any piece of glass or anything with any physical mass to it wouldn't get through that shirt. Thoughts?
 
I forgot to add we racked it off the trub and left that in there and that's where we found the glass.
 
Look up the etymology of Mad as a Hatter and hope it didn't contain any mercury.
 
Just so we're clear, this is a food grade thermometer that came with the brew kit I orginally received as a present. Those thermometers don't contain mercury and from what I understand thermometers haven't had mercury in them for a long time.
 
Tons of thermometers have mercury in them..... if you shop at harbor freight. Yea food ones won't but what's a thread without some sensationalism?
 
So I looked at the thermometer more closely and the thermometer portion itself didn't break at all, just the casing with the steel shot in it. We filtered the wort several times, racked it from the brew kettle to primary, filtered from primary back to clean brew kettle through fine screened colander with a t-shirt over with a very fine weave after sanitizing the t-shirt and we were careful to leave whatever trub was left over after doing all this to not pour much of that back in. Finally I poured it through the colander one more time into a clean santized primary so I think we did everything we could. Thankfully my wife jumped right in to help. I know we got all the steel shot so no worries there, it's basically down to whether any glass could've gotten through the shirt or not and it would have to be microscopic to get through that shirt IMO. I guess we'll just have to wait and see, the other issue is we filtered it so much I had to use a few gallons of top off water and it dropped my SG to 1.034 from 1.042 to 1.046.
 
So what we're doing is we found all of the steel bb's so there is no issue there. We found three large pieces of glass, but of course we are missing a few. We took a clean t-shirt, cut it up to act as a filter for us, sanitized it with Starsan and we're filtering the beer through that. I think that's the most we can do. I doubt any piece of glass or anything with any physical mass to it wouldn't get through that shirt. Thoughts?

I think common sense would agree with the t shirt filter. :tank:
 
I seriously doubt that you can find a thermometer that has mercury in it anymore. It is just too expensive.

T-shirt filter should be good enough, especially when leaving behind a good layer of trub. That said, I probably would not drink it. But then again I did not pay for the ingredients. That is also why I don't use glass thermometers anymore.
 
Well I was going to pitch it, but then my wife stepped in with the t-shirt idea and I thought that is this beers only chance at this point. Then I read about the bb's being steel and no issues there and the manufacturer stating there was nothing toxic in the thermometer and thought if we can just get the glass we'll be okay.
 
For me I would not be concerned about the BB's, or the possibility of mercury. I would be concerned with the glass. In thinking about it, between leaving the trub behind and the filtering I would probably go for it if it were my beer. When you transfer to bottles or kegs there is another level of leaving anything heavy behind...

If someone offered me one of theirs, and told me of these problems, I would probably pass though.
 
the same happened to me a few batches back.....strained thru a lowes paint strainer, probobly the same as your wifes tee shirt idea...no probolem..yer fine relax and have a home brew....(kudos for your wife)
 
I seriously doubt that you can find a thermometer that has mercury in it anymore. It is just too expensive.

One would think you can't get Merthiolate/Thimerosol anymore either, considering it is a mercury solution designed to be put into open wounds - but I just saw bottles of it sitting on the shelf at Walmart a few weeks ago.....
 
One would think you can't get Merthiolate/Thimerosol anymore either, considering it is a mercury solution designed to be put into open wounds - but I just saw bottles of it sitting on the shelf at Walmart a few weeks ago.....

And the guy on the grassy knoll shot JFK.
 
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