Another one bites the dust...

Last night, while prepping to bottle, the situation follows...I grabbed a wet carboy (glass) from my swamp bucket. lost grip on it, tried to catch it while at the same time slipping and ended up lying on my back in a pool of glass and blood...I laid there for a few seconds contemplating my next move. Got up, stepped on glass, grabbed towels and bed sheets to prevent beer from spreading on the floor. What a night. It is not even close to cleaned up, I couldn't call in sick to work, so here I am.

No life threatening injuries, but many small cuts on my hand and foot. A fairly large one on the bottom of my foot. My hand now has 4 bandaids as new cuts seem to be opening up as the day progresses. Fingertips...ouch. My place smells of beer and has blood on the walls...5 gallons is a lot to clean up. Don't know what I learned from this, but I feel fortunate not to have needed a hospital visit like others have.

I mourn the loss of my beer...

Glad to hear there was no major injury. Finger tip cuts. That sucks!!
These are popping up more and more it seems. I think the Porter fermenting right now may be my last Glass Primary. I'll keep my 5G for apfelwein because it nevers noves excpet when empty to clean. BB I think i need you!

Yeah, i had decided a bit ago that I wasn't keen on glass carboys...but decided to use them since my brother has about 11 of them ready to use. I think I'm just going to stick to buckets. I don't secondary a lot so they will work fine.

YIKES! Sorry to hear about this. Thankfully your injuries weren't more severe.

TheMan said:

Yeah, i had decided a bit ago that I wasn't keen on glass carboys...but decided to use them since my brother has about 11 of them ready to use. I think I'm just going to stick to buckets. I don't secondary a lot so they will work fine.

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Even for a secondary, buckets work fine.

Yeah, I think my glass carboys are only going to be for long-term aging (westy 12, mead, etc). I can't really justify switching to all plastic but I've mostly cut out secondary in favor of longer primarying, so the two buckets I have should be plenty.

I wrote 'I mourn the loss of my beer' in my beer notebook after my hefe blew out a lot... makes me think you're me from the future, in which case, crap. I don't want to get injured

I'm very fortunate compared to other stories I've read. Some people end up severing tendons...So I can deal with cuts all over for the moment.

I like my carboy, but keep it in a milk crate when I'm handling it, especially when full.

Wow that is a really bad experience.
I have had a glass carboy hit the concrete too. I thought that was bad, but I never got hurt.
Only my heart at the loss of a good beer.

I hope you heal quickly,
Dog

With a bad back and bad knees (surgery on both knees) I decided to put the carboy in one place and never move it. I built a small stand with wheel. tall enough to siphon to a bucket below. I fill it on the stand and let it ferment on the stand and siphon from it on the stand. Never move a full carboy again.

Forrest

Pete08 said:

I like my carboy, but keep it in a milk crate when I'm handling it, especially when full.

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This is an excellent idea!

Yeah that really sucks. Glad you made it off your back o.k. I had that happen a while ago and lucked out as you did. After that I bought carboy haulers for all of my carboys. A bit $$$ when I grab one for everyone I had but I feel very safe now moving them around.

I think I'll just stop using the glass. It's always been a fear lurking in the back of my head every time I pick one up. Plus, buckets stack, better storage. I live in a small apartment so this will free up space. My kitchen was swimming in beer last night and I don't plan on doing that again.

I feel for you. I use all glass carboys and I have 1 rule: dry hands + dry carboy. Those things are slippery when wet and full.

Milk crates are a great idea, but I'm having a hell of a time finding decent used (or even new) ones.

Yeah, it was really a dumb mistake on my part. It was my first use of a swamp bucket. There kind of wasn't really a good way to move it from the water though.

Fortunately it wasn't a beer I was crazy about. And it was made with LME from a bag that arrived broken open. I was sent a bag to make up for it, so I'm not out any money from malt use. Very lightly hopped, so didn't waste much in that department. Basically only losses were grains from partial mash, yeast and hops. I had called it my Diseased Ale.

I'm more pissed about the mess it made than anything. I told my brew friend and one of his thoughts was, "well, we won't have a bottle shortage for our 15 gallons that is fermenting at the moment!" lol

R.I.P Diseased Ale

Too bad you couldn't have salvaged a bottle or two of it off of the floor. It would have went perfectly with the whole "diseased" theme. You might have to try and wring out 12 ounces worth since I imagine the towels and stuff are still sitting on the floor or thrown in a corner somewhere ............

I was not trying to undermine the fact that you were probably more focused on digging the carboy shards out or yourself ..........

but i have to admit, once I realized no hospital visit was required my next thought was about the beer ..........

I use my glass carboy for secondary, and never move it while it is full. I told my wife some of the stories, and she is happy to have me leave it on the kitchen counter covered in a tshirt for a week or two.

all hail the ale pail.

BeerPressure said:

all hail the ale pail.

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+1 to that. I only have two glass carboys which I use as secondaries, they make me VERY nervous to handle...

TheMan said:

My place smells of beer and has blood on the walls...5 gallons is a lot to clean up.

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Five gallons is a lot of blood to lose!!! Are you sure you don't feel lightheaded???

haha. Sadly I am looking forward to going home tonight to clean up the mess...It took so long to contain it last night that I gave up cleaning midway through. Now the floor is all sticky and most of my kitchen is sitting on the porch.

Hopefully the blood will just wash off the walls.

I've been using milk crates since 1994.

I have over 20 carboys and have yet to break even one.

The only time I ever handle a carboy out of the crate is if it's dry and empty.