Bought a lot of glass carboys before knowing about kegs

Hm I bought quite a few glass carboys for brewing before seeing the threads about doing primary fermenting in kegs. The price per capacity is comparable but the kegs seem like they are much safer. I'm getting paranoid about a cracking carboy slicing my arms off eventually.

The second thing I realized is that the gallon glass jugs are actually a lower cost per unit capacity except that yes you do need a lot more airlocks, but handling a 1 gallon glass jug seems safer than wielding those 6.5g big boys.

I wonder if there is a product you could use to laminate the glass to make it shatterproof?

On a side note, I've got 4 6.5 gallon glass carboys from the 1970's that were used primarily for mead and they're still kicking ass and taking names.

I've seen people put hardware cloth around them and then duct tape but I'd rather avoid something like that because I usually spill sweet stuff down the sides at some point, then that will be underneath the duct tape. I think I just need to have a safety plan for safe handling. It's just the risk I know is there, like what if this broke while I'm carrying it? Right now it would be at my bare feet, hands and arms, so I think maybe just wearing boots, and maybe textile motorcycle pants and jacket and some type of glove would be sufficient. It's mostly when it's full I'm nervous now.

porcupine73 said:

I've seen people put hardware cloth around them and then duct tape but I'd rather avoid something like that because I usually spill sweet stuff down the sides at some point, then that will be underneath the duct tape. I think I just need to have a safety plan for safe handling. It's just the risk I know is there, like what if this broke while I'm carrying it? Right now it would be at my bare feet, hands and arms, so I think maybe just wearing boots, and maybe textile motorcycle pants and jacket and some type of glove would be sufficient. It's mostly when it's full I'm nervous now.

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Be careful with the gloves. If you go overboard here you might lose grip and drop one because of all the safety gear you're wearing.

I broke a carboy when cleaning after the 1st time I used it... lame... I spend the extra money on the top handle and the brew hauler straps the second time and haven't had a problem since...

milk crates for the win

You could probably Plasti-Dip a carboy. But you can no longer see in it.

Buckets work pretty good, and as mentioned, milk crates. You could also always put them up for trade for a Better Bottle or Corny. Not sure I'd ferment in kegs. Buckets are nice though. Kegs just seem too expensive.

Milk crates are great. Get the real ones and not the flimsy ones you usually see in the stores. I asked a restaurant for a couple that they had out back and they agreed. The plastic is really thick on those.

Always use a milk crate or BrewHauler for full carboys. Never use a carboy handle on anything other than an empty carboy. Never hold a full or partly full carboy and turn it sideways to empty it when cleaning - always siphon out the cleaning solution. When rinsing, you can lay the carboy on its side, use a small amount of rinse water and roll it to rinse, keeping your hands on top of the carboy. A carboy handle can be useful here when dumping out the rinse water.

I suspect that many of the "spontaneous" failures are due to micro-cracks in soft glass (cheap) carboys, perhaps accelerated by caustic cleaning solutions. Here's an interesting article on cleaning from Better Bottle:

http://www.better-bottle.com/pdf/WashingSanitizingStudy.pdf

See the section titled "An Important Warning".

Thanks for the tips. Wow DeafSmith that's a very interesting article you linked. It's very detailed. I didn't notice if they had any suggestions for what to use to clean glass carboys? Do you think they suggest the Seventh Generation Free and Clear detergent for that? That would be perfect since I already happen to have a container of it. I am or was using Carlson Straight A, I didn't realize that is actually classified as caustic, it contains percarbonates, silicates, and something else. Know I know why my fingers feel soapy when it touches my skin, I'm guessing is saponifying my skin.

porcupine73 said:

Thanks for the tips. Wow DeafSmith that's a very interesting article you linked. It's very detailed. I didn't notice if they had any suggestions for what to use to clean glass carboys? Do you think they suggest the Seventh Generation Free and Clear detergent for that? That would be perfect since I already happen to have a container of it. I am or was using Carlson Straight A, I didn't realize that is actually classified as caustic, it contains percarbonates, silicates, and something else. Know I know why my fingers feel soapy when it touches my skin, I'm guessing is saponifying my skin.

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I think the main things to remember if using a caustic cleaner are:
* Don't use too strong a concentration
* Don't leave the cleaning solution in the carboy for a long period of time (days)
* Always pre-mix the powder into some water before putting it into the carboy

I have one 5 gallon glass carboy and I've always used OxiClean Free (a caustic) to clean it, and still do, but I now follow the guidelines above. I'm sure the Seventh Generation stuff would be fine to use, if it works for you. I've never tried it, but might if it's not $$$$.

Great thanks, yes usually with the cleaner I just slosh a little bit of it around in there. I need to start premixing it though, usually I put a little warm water in then I sprinkle in some powder without premixing, I can see that probably isn't the best approach.

I've been using Carlson Straight A, I would like to continue using it because it seems to work very well, I haven't had to use my scrub brush at all since I started using it. I use it with one of those spray wand things you stick up in there.

I'd rather not use the Free and Clear, because that's a soap, and my experience with soaps is they are pain in the butt to get it all out of the container, like it takes a ton of rinsing.

I think i'm going to switch over to better bottles after reading this thread. I have been doing all my fermenting in glass forever and havn't had a disaster yet. But a couple of my carboys are ancient. I hate fermenting in buckets though because then you can't see whats goin on without taking the lids off. I am usually pretty buzzed when I brew also.

Good post. Well I admit better bottles are tempting. But I doubt I will use them; I just do not trust the food safety of plastic no matter what is claimed about it. The way I look at it, there is risk in everything we do. So the more the risk, the more prudent it is to take precuations. Is it possible to brew safely, at least as in prevent personal injury, when using glass carboys? I would argue yes absolutely. There do seem to be many people who never have in issue with them. I think just by having the right procedures in place such as wearing maybe boots and protective clothing and gloves then if one does break, at the minimum you won't get hurt or will be hurt minimally.

Didn't someone do a test by taping some jugs up and breaking them? Seems they were looking to find out if taping up carboys could help against catastrophic failure and the personal safety risk that goes with it.

I still use my glass carboy, but it either has a milk crate to go in, or I use a brew hauler to carry it. The only time it's not using one of those is when I'm washing it, which is probably the most hazardous time! Oh well. I'd buy better bottles if I needed more containers like that.

I'll be using my glass for a long time. Not to be righteous about it, I understand the safety concerns, but I built my fermentation chamber (water bath, custom, flexiglass tank-in-tank, insulated, glycol cooling...) and it is sized to my carboys. A keg would sit too tall. If I ever break one, I'll look into a better bottle, but at this point I can control my temps within a degree. Milk crates for moving them around, though!

Gotta remember that this article is put out by better bottle as a way to convince you to get their fermentation equipment... I haven't been brewing for a super long time but I haven't heard very much concern with this argument about glass carboys and them slowly dissolving over time. It also doesn't lay out how long it would take for these cleaning products to dissolve the glass over time. You could be talking about years before some of these micro cracks start to make a difference.

I personally use percarb and usually use about half the normal concentration. I let it soak and foam out all of the organic material for a couple hours. Seems to have worked fine for me so far (knock on wood).

So I was trying to find out what type of glass these carboys are made out of... is it really Soda Lime Glass?

I'm wondering what they would say about what this might do to a corny keg too...? I have heard over time since percarb and PBW and such are an oxidizer that can rust stainless steel. Wonder if it's because their caustic...?

I ferment in adapted/converted sanke kegs now and plan to never use glass carboys ever again. I still have a couple of PET/Better Bottle carboys, but rarely even think about using them. I used a bucket fermenter for all of two batches and swore to never do that again. I use tall/slim 1/4bbl kegs for beer, plus a 50L keg for larger batches. I have several 1/6bbl kegs for my batches of mead, and other things.

I like the 6.5 gallon brew buckets. Very affordable, easy to clean and move. I have two glass carboys that clinked against each other once and have star cracks, now they sit on a shelf looking pretty and empty. For the same amount of $$$$$ I can get 3 or 4 buckets. I do however have a bad history with glass. In every instance where I have worked with glass the results are shards and blood and I have plenty of scars to prove it, so I am just plain afraid of glass.

Correct, when you touch a base and it feel slippery - you're turning into soap.

I still like glass for it's long term stability - but I have better bottles and buckets for most of my work horse fermenters.

If I had it to over I would be just getting kegs like Golddiggie describes. That's the route I'd of preferred to go, but when I bought all my glass carboys I didn't realize and had never even heard of using kegs for primary. But it's fine, I know I can be safe when using the glass carboys if I take a few steps to protect myself in even of breakage during handling. Provided I can be disciplined enough to always follow the safety precautions any time I handle them. Maybe if I print out a picture of someone who got hurt when one broke that will motivate me to always follow my safety plan.